Amsterdam Map 1844 Meyer City Plan Print with Building Views - Westerkerk, Dam Square, Amstel River, IJ Bay

Plan von Amsterdam, dated 1844, comes from Meyer's Grosser Hand-Atlas uber alle Theile der Erde in 170 Karten, which the Bibliographisches Institut of Hildburghausen issued in 1860. The catalog credits Joseph Meyer and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and it notes that the plan was copied from the Society's London map of 1835. The sheet measures 36 by 40 centimeters, and it is numbered 35 in Meyer's atlas. An inset map, Umgebung von Amsterdam, shows the surroundings of the city, and 14 small drawings along the margin give the facades of its principal buildings, under a caption about their relative sizes. The sheet is a good example of the engraved city plans that German publishers sold to the home market, with a decorative clarity that makes it easy to read at a glance.

The catalog calls the atlas Meyer's grandest production, a real tour de force, and the Amsterdam plan shows why, with fine engraving and a clear order of streets, canals and public buildings. The facades give the viewer a sense of the city's skyline in the mid-nineteenth century, when Amsterdam was recovering its role as a center of commerce after the Napoleonic years. The atlas also holds fifty maps of the Americas, many derived from American originals, a reminder of how widely the Hildburghausen press borrowed and republished the best maps of its time. A German edition of an English plan, it was made for readers who wanted a neat picture of a famous city.

A traveler who has walked Amsterdam's canals, a family with roots in the city, or a collector of nineteenth-century city plans will find a lasting gift here. TheMapVault's English-language plan of 1870 shows the same city from the Society's own press, whereas this 1844 sheet is the German version from Meyer's atlas. 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.