1875 MAYR'S GRAND SURVEY OF THE ALPS 8 FOLIO MAP SHEETS

Karte der Älpenländer aus Mayr's Alpen-Atlas

SET OF EIGHT 39 x 35 cm copperplate engravings, 47 x 39 cm sheet size, original hand colour, Justus Perthes, Gotha, 1875

We are pleased to offer this exceptionally scarce example of the magnificent grand survey of the Alps compiled by the German geographer and master draughtsman Johann Georg Mayr (1800-1864) and engraved under the direction of Hermann Berghaus (1828-1890) over a period of nearly a decade.  First published in 1873 as the "Mayr-Berghaus Karte der Alpen" the survey was later described by Hyacinth Holland in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie as "an outstanding work representing the pinnacle of Mayr's achievements...a splendid overview which, in the richness and accuracy of detail allows for not the slightest criticism.  For perhaps the first time the largest of our continental mountain chains is portrayed in a completely coherent manner, with all of its collective and individual formations clearly visible."  Mayr began work in the Munich Bureau of Topography at the age of 14 and worked on the project for decades, culminating in the publication of the maps in 1856 by the Justus Perthes publishing house of Stieler atlas fame.  However, this first issue was a commercial failure as the oversize format of the nine original map sheets resulted in an atlas that cost more than a complete Stieler folio atlas at the time.  Berghaus, however, was determined not to let this unparalleled cartographic work fall by the wayside and set out to reformat the map with 8 new plates in the size and format of the Stieler, omitting extraneous adjacent territory yet still covering the entire Swiss, German and Austrian Alps and retaining Mayr's 1:450000 scale.  The team of engravers at the Justus Perthes firm meticulously copied Mayr's extraordinary hachure topography line by line with the end result finding commercial success and rightly considered by many as the finest topographic map of the 19th century.

We begin our survey of the map with a view of the region around Mont Blanc - to get a sense of the remarkable detail in the engraving work consider that the distance from the peak of Mont Blanc to Chamonix as seen below measures just 2 cm actual size:

Each individual map sheet stands as a work of art in its own right - note clever "overspill" in this elegantly designed sheet:

The hachure work throughout gives the map a distinct three dimensional appearance, as this view of Innsbruck and environs demonstrates:

Map sheets of course feature subtle outline hand colour in the Stieler manner:

Title cartouche, detailed legend:

As another scale comparison consider tha the distance from Geneva to Lausanne as seen below measures just 11 cm actual size:

Berchtesgadener Alpen, German and Austrian border:

Map extends as far as Venice, Trieste and the Adriatic:

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