Theatrum Belli Serenissimæ Domus Austriacæ, contra Gallos,

Wall map of the Rhine valley printed on silk for the War of Austrian Succession

A large wall map of the theatre of war in the Rhine valley, richly decorated, crisply printed on silk and beautifully coloured by a contemporary hand. It was produced during the War of the Spanish Succession (1740-1748). The title notes the war in the Low Countries, so the map was most likely produced in the period 1745 to 1747, when the war expanded into that region (the Latin title notes that Seutter was geographer to the late Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, who died in 1740). At a scale of about 1:405,000, the map covers the Rhine River from the Swiss-German border about 50 kilometres west of its source at Lake Constance (the Bodenzee) to its mouths at the North Sea in South Holland, and includes northwest Switzerland, midwest and southwest Germany, northeast France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the southern part of Netherlands, stopping just south of Amsterdam. The entire map covers 46° 34'-52° 24' N latitude and (using a prime meridian through Ferro Island in the Canaries) 20° 23'-27° W longitude (2° 23'-9° by modern reckoning). It shows political boundaries, the fortifications of the cities, topographic features, woods, and sand banks.

Johann Friedrich Oettinger (active 1737-1765), military engineer to King Christian VI and/or King Frederick V of Denmark and Norway, published several military maps. The present example was published by Suetter (1678-1756) and engraved by his son-in-law Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717-1777). Matthaeus Seutter came from an Augsburg family of goldsmiths and gold workers, including his father and grandfather of the same name. It is tempting to think the map might have been coloured by Bartholomaeus Seutter (1678-1754), an Augsburg faience painter, silk dyer, engraver, and also, supposedly, a goldsmith, who worked out of his own house and may have been Matthaeus's cousin. In the 1730s and 1740s Bartholomaeus worked on plates for J.H. Weinmann's botanical works, published in Regensburg and Amsterdam, the latter printed in colour.

A flap of silk has been left on the reverse and given a manuscript title in a contemporary hand (probably to identify the map when folded): 'C. a. q. Theatrum belli domus Austriacæ contra Gallos seu Cursus Rheni.'

Engraved wall map WITH FINE CONTEMPORARY HAND-COLOUR, PRINTED ON SILK from six large copper plates (each plate measuring about 570 by 290mm), Latin title in a large decorative cartouche above left (with two figures representing river gods) and the German title in another below left, both with baroque decorations, flags and military attributes, a further cartouche bears a large decorated compass rose above right (the map is oriented with north to the right), two scales below the German title cartouche and scales of latitude and longitude in the border. Dimensions: 1140 by 1650mm (41 by 65 inches).

Seifert, 'Die Karte als Kunstwerk'; Tooley, p. 471; IKAR (three copies, all apparently on paper).