Lapland Map 1680 Blaeu Lapponia Print - Lapland, Finland, Sweden, Norway

This fine old color map of Lapland, titled Lapponia Auct Andrea Buraeo Sueco, was published in Amsterdam around 1680 by the Blaeu house. It credits the Swedish mapmaker Andreas Bureus as its author, and it shows the northernmost parts of Finland, Sweden and Norway, the land of the Sami people in the far north of Scandinavia. Several decorative coats of arms adorn the sheet, and two cartouches stand in its corners. The sheet also gives a glimpse of how Dutch publishers pictured the Arctic edge of Europe, with its decorative heraldry set against a very sparse and distant landscape. It is a sheet for readers who like their maps to carry a sense of the remote, and its old color and its heraldry are pleasing to look at. It will give a wall a distinctive northern accent, and it rewards a slow look at its fine detail.

Joan Blaeu lived from 1596 to 1673 and was the son of Willem Janszoon Blaeu. He inherited his father's meticulous and striking mapmaking style and continued the Blaeu workshop until it burned in 1672. Trained as a lawyer, he decided to join his father's business instead, and after 1638 he and his brother Cornelis took over the shop, while Joan also worked as hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. His Atlas Maior, published between 1662 and 1672, is one of the most sought-after atlases of today because of the quality and beauty of its maps.

Anyone drawn to the Arctic north, a family with roots in Lapland, or a collector of Blaeu's work will find a distinctive gift here. TheMapVault's Blaeu map of Finland from 1664 covers the lands to the south, whereas this sheet carries the reader north into Lapland itself. 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. It would suit a study or a hall.