Part of a Ketterer Kunst (25% buyer’s premium) sale on on November 30, this was a 1586 first, Latin text edition of the first printed rutter (or book) of sailing instructions, a work known more familiarly as the Spieghel der Zeevaerdt, or in English language editions as The Mariner’s Mirror.
The first printed sea atlas, it contains some 45 double-page engraved charts, all boasting fine contemporary colouring and sometimes heightened with gold.
The colouring of some charts is retouched in places, and restoration and repairs are evident in others, said the saleroom, while a few may have been added from another copy.
Having spent many years at sea Waghenaer (c.1533-1606) took up a post ashore as a collector of marine dues in his native port of Enkhuizen, but lost that post in 1582.
It was while working at a variety of menial jobs to keep himself financially afloat that he began work on what became one of the most successful maritime publications of the age, and the model for those many sea atlases that followed in the 17th century.
