Belgium & Holland Map 1840 Greenleaf Universal Atlas Print - Brussels, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Rotterdam

This map of Belgium and Holland was drawn by Jeremiah Greenleaf for A New Universal Atlas, printed by G. R. French of Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1840. It measures 32 by 27 centimeters and is colored in full by country. The catalog describes the atlas as the first issue by Greenleaf, a reissue of David Burr's 1836 edition with a new map of Texas, new railroads and some new counties. Burr's imprint and the copyright notice were removed from nearly every map, so the sheet carries Greenleaf's name alone. The atlas holds 64 maps and is bound in half black leather with a circular label reading Jeremiah Greenleaf's Universal Atlas. Because the engraved coloring is applied by country, the two nations are easy to tell apart, and the sheet reads cleanly even at a glance across a room.

In the early nineteenth century Belgium and the Netherlands were going through deep political change, and this sheet shows them together on one page. They had been joined under a single crown after 1815 and separated after the Belgian revolution of 1830, and the Netherlands accepted that separation in 1839, the year before this edition appeared. American readers of the day followed the story in the newspapers, and a map of the two countries was a practical companion to the news. Greenleaf's atlas was a small-format American work for homes and schools, and its colors by country make the political divisions easy to read.

A collector of early American atlases, a family with roots in Belgium or Holland, or a reader of nineteenth-century European history will find a fitting gift here. TheMapVault's Wyld sheet of 1864 shows the same pair of countries with railways, whereas this Greenleaf map is a New England printing from 1840. 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.