Homannsche Erben, General Table of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Duchy of Silesia, and the Margraviate of Moravia and Lusatia [1748]

Title: Regni Bohemiae, Dvc. Silesiae, Marchionatvvm Moraviae et Lvsatiae Tabula Generalis = Map of the States of Bohemia, with the Sovereign Duke of Silesia.

Author: Homannsche Erben

Publisher: Homann Erben, Nuremberg (Nürnberg)

Year of publication: 1748.

Format: sheet 580x510 mm, print 535x475 mm.

The map “Regni Bohemiae, Ducatus Silesiae, Marchionatus Moraviae et Lusatiae, Tabula Generalis” covers the lands known in historiography as the Lands of the Bohemian Crown—Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, and Lusatia—that is, an area which, unlike in the case of a mere personal union, formally belonged not to the sovereign but to the Crown itself. The title cartouche bearing the inscription “sumtibus IOH. B. HOMANNI” is adorned with four coats of arms corresponding to the four lands depicted. The nomenclature is noteworthy: place names are listed in German, Polish, and Czech, often providing several variants of the name for a single location. The same copperplate composition was reprinted by Homann’s workshop and his successors over several decades—pieces dated to around 1710, 1720, and 1730, as well as, as presented here, from 1748, when the company was already being run by the founder’s heirs.

The creator of the original plate and the company that published it was Johann Baptist Homann (1663–1724), a German cartographer who founded his own publishing house for maps and prints in Nuremberg in 1702. In 1715, he was appointed imperial geographer by Emperor Charles VI and became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, and a year later he published his most important work—the atlas *Grosser Atlas ueber die ganze Welt*—on which he collaborated with the engraver Christoph Weigel the Elder. After his death, his son Christoph (1703–1730) took over the company, and when he, too, died prematurely, his heirs continued the business under the name Homann Erben—the publishing house operated under this name until 1848.

This item is of interest to collectors of historical cartography, researchers of the history of Silesia, Moravia, and Lusatia, and enthusiasts of 18th-century applied graphics.

A copperplate engraving, colored both in lines and by areas. Tears at the bottom of the map have been repaired; a trace of woodworm damage is visible against the light; traces of past water damage are visible on both sides of the sheet. The map is loose, unframed.

Catalog ID: M95-58-A-X