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Schenk and Valk: : Natolia, quae olim Asia Minor

Copper engraving, 38.5 x 50 cms. Original hand-colour. Generous margins with a couple of clean tears not affecting the printed area, repaired on verso.

This plate was originally engraved by Hondius in the seventeenth-century and shows the heart of the Ottoman Empire when it was at its height. Constantinople is at the upper left, and the map extends from the Aegean (including part of Crete) in the West to the River Euphrates in the East, and includes Cyprus. This is one of the most decorative maps of Anatolia. The title is on a banner supported by two winged and turbaned busts. The seas contain monsters and in the Eastern Mediterranean two Ottoman galleys have engaged a foreign vessel, perhaps intended as a representation of the wars between the Ottoman world and Christendom .

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