Austrian Netherlands Map 1795 Burgundian Circle School Atlas Print - Brussels, Antwerp, Luxembourg, Amsterdam

D. F. Sotzmann drew this Der Burgundische Kreis oder Die Oestreichschen Niederlande, and Paulus Schmidt engraved it for Sotzmann's collections of maps for schools, published in Berlin around 1795. The map shows the Burgundian Circle, or the Austrian Netherlands, a region that covers parts of present-day northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It measures 25 by 29 centimeters on a sheet of 33 by 42 and is a hand-colored engraving with relief in hachures. It shows political boundaries, cities, fortifications, topography, vegetation, bodies of water, drainage, coastlines and islands, and a bar scale, a legend and lines of latitude and longitude complete the sheet. The atlas is bound in marbled boards with leather corners and spine and a gilt spine title, and the catalog calls it very rare in this complete version, with coverage that reaches from the hemispheres to Polynesia.

The atlas holds 35 maps in three parts, bound together with each title page at the front of its volume, and the catalog calls the complete set very rare. Its coverage runs from the hemispheres and Europe to France, Italy and Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Asia, Africa, America and Polynesia, with this sheet standing for the old Habsburg lands of the Low Countries. Sotzmann was a Berlin geographer, surveyor and draftsman whose small-scale methods were widely admired. The year 1795 was one of upheaval, since French armies were then reshaping the political map of these very provinces, which gives the sheet the feel of a record made at the last moment.

Anyone who studies the Habsburg Low Countries, a family with roots in Belgium, Luxembourg or the southern Netherlands, or a collector of Berlin school atlases will find a thoughtful gift here. TheMapVault's sheet of Holland from the same atlas shows the northern provinces, whereas this one covers the Austrian-ruled south. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.