Æthiopia, Abyssinia, the Kingdom of Prester John.

Schenk, Petri & Valk Gerardi. Æthiopia, Superior and Inferior commonly called Abyssinia or the Kingdom of Prester John. "Aethiopia Superior vel Interior vulgo Abissinorum sive Prebiteri Joannis Imperium." Amsterdam Schenk, Petri & Valk Gerardi c1700
Copper engraved map of East Africa Æthiopia from Schenk and Valk's " Atlas Contractus." Original full wash colour; verso blank.

The map shows a major section of central and eastern Africa including Mozambique north to present day Sudan
The map contains numerous coastal place names such as Mozambique Island, Quiloa, Mombaza, and Melinde indicating the importance of the area to both Arab, Portuguese, and traders and explorers from other countries. Congo is shown on the west coast and the two lakes of Zaire and Zaflan described by Ptolomy are in the lower portion of the map. Lake Niger, and the supposed course of the Niger River, is shown flowing westward. This map is based on Ortelius' map of Prester John of 1573.
Decorative title cartouche, black and white as issued; elephants, ostriches and monkeys within the land.

The legends of Prester John (also Presbyter Johannes) were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. Written accounts of this kingdom are variegated collections of medieval popular fantasy. Prester John was reportedly a descendant of one of the Three Magi, said to be a generous ruler and a virtuous man, presiding over a realm full of riches and strange creatures, in which the Patriarch of the Saint Thomas Christians resided. His kingdom contained such marvels as the Gates of Alexander and the Fountain of Youth, and even bordered the Earthly Paradise. Among his treasures was a mirror through which every province could be seen, the fabled original from which the "speculum literature" of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance was derived, in which the prince's realms were surveyed and his duties laid out.

At first, Prester John was imagined to reside in India; tales of the Nestorian Christians' evangelistic success there and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels as documented in works like the Acts of Thomas probably provided the first seeds of the legend. After the coming of the Mongols to the Western world, accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers convinced themselves that they had found him in Ethiopia, which had been officially Christian since the 4th century. Prester John's kingdom was thus the object of a quest, firing the imaginations of generations of adventurers, but remaining out of reach. He was a symbol to European Christians of the Church's universality, transcending culture and geography to encompass all humanity, in a time when ethnic and inter-religious tension made such a vision seem distant. Good impression with bright colour.
The maps of Schenk and Valk are famous for their full wash colour , however often the pigments, particularly in the greens deteriorated leading to browning and eventually could cause the paper to crack, for this reason it is unusual to see such bright original colour.

SCHENCK, Pieter 1660-1718/9

Dutch mapmaker and publisher. Born in Elberfeld, Germany in 1660. Moved to Amsterdam in 1683 where he became a pupil of Gerard Valck, later in 1687 he married Agatha Valck, sister of his associate., thus uniting two great families.

In 1686 he is noted in a privilege granted to Petrus Schenck and Gerardus Valck for the printing & sale of their prints.
The Valck and Schenk families where active as print sellers, publishers and printers of maps, atlases and architectural drawings as well globes. They accquired plates from the stock of Johannes Janssonius and also of Visscher reissuing several maps of Janssonius' "Atlas Novus "from 1683-94 and published an Atlas titled" Nova totius Geographia" in 1702.

The best known of the joint Pieter Schenk & Gerard Valck publications were the second edition of Andreas Cellarius's " Celestial Atlas Harmonia Macrocosmica'" 1708 and an edition of Jan Jansson's "Novus Atlas" entitled the "Atlas Anglois" published in London by David Mortier in 1715.

Pieter Schenck the Elder's earliest cartographic productions were a number of maps after Nicolas Sanson published in a composite Atlas, "Atlas Contractus or Atlas Minor" c.1696. He also published a further composite Atlas, "Atlantis sylloge compendiosa," c.1702.


Other works included his famous Atlas of one hundred town views," Hecatompolis" [1702];" Le Theatre de Mars "[1706]; and the "Schouwburg van der Oorlog"[1706].
Koeman III, page 114 Map 447; Sche 2/ Val1. 380 by 514mm (15 by 20¼ inches).   ref: 2577  €600