The Art Newspaper – A rare Dutch Golden Age map of the world that was discovered, scrunched up in a ball, in a house in Aberdeenshire is on show at the National Library of Scotland (until 17 April). Claire Thomson, a conservator at the library, describes its preservation as “the most difficult project I have ever tackled”.
Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula (new map of all the world) was designed by the Amsterdam-based cartographer Gerald Valck and was probably published in London by George Wildey in around 1690. It is similar to the highly decorated maps that hang on the walls in some of Vermeer’s paintings. Until now, only two copies of Valck’s map were known: one is in the British Library in London and the other is in the Maritime Museum Rotterdam. The more than 2m-wide “chimney map”, named because it was probably found in a chimney, was printed from copper plates in eight sections and pasted onto a linen backing. – read more