Antwerp Map 1832 SDUK Town Plan Print with Building Views - Scheldt River, Lillo, Fortifications, Mechlin Road

This plan of Antwerp, also titled Antwerpen and Anvers, was published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. W. B. Clarke drew it, B. R. Davies engraved and printed it, and Baldwin and Cradock issued it in London in December 1832, with Chapman and Hall reissuing it in the 1844 volume of the Society's maps. The sheet measures 40 by 32 centimeters at a scale of 1:11,000 and is an engraved map with hand coloring. It includes a view titled Antwerp from the road to Mechlin, Brussels and Louvain, and drawings of the facades of eleven buildings under the heading A comparison of the principal buildings at Antwerp. The hand coloring picks out the fortifications, the water and the urban areas, so the sheet reads clearly even at a distance.

The city is shown enclosed by its star-shaped fortifications, with the Scheldt River running across the top as the trade route that made Antwerp a major port. An inset gives a Plan of the Scheldt and forts from Antwerp to Lillo, which underlines the military and economic importance of the river. The Society was known for inexpensive maps that encouraged wide use in education, and its city plans are singled out in the catalog for their vignettes and great detail. M. C. Branch's Atlas of Rare City Maps lists the plan on pages 20 and 21, and the atlas that carries it is bound in half leather with gilt lettering on the spines.

A collector of nineteenth-century city plans, a family with roots in Antwerp, or a student of port cities will find a lasting gift here. TheMapVault's Brussels plan from the same Society, dated 1837, comes from the same atlas, whereas this one gives Antwerp its own river view and eleven building facades. 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.