ORTELIUS, Abraham (1527-1598). - photo 1
ORTELIUS, Abraham (1527-1598). - photo 2

ORTELIUS, Abraham (1527-1598).

Lot 68
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 20 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 993244
Lot 68 | ORTELIUS, Abraham (1527-1598).
Estimate value
£ 20 000 – 30 000
ORTELIUS, Abraham (1527-1598).

Autograph letter signed ('Abrah. Ortelius') to his nephew, Jacob Cole [Jacobus Colius], Antwerp, 2 February 1595.

In Latin, one page, 286 x 195mm, integral address panel to Cole in London, early pagination 275-6 (remnant of guard); with a translation. Provenance: presented by Cole to the Dutch Church in London; Sotheby's sale of 'The highly important correspondence of Abraham Ortelius', 14 February 1955, lot 30; Sotheby's, 18 June 1968 (which again featured the whole correspondence), lot 339; Christie's, 3 June 2009, lot 38.



On books, numismatics and the colouring of a Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Ortelius expresses his delight that his nephew is well in body, and reasonably so in spirits: for himself, it is the other way round ('ego animo melius quam corpore'), but it was ever thus. He refers in passing to the forthcoming second edition of Jacob Monau's compilation of epigrams, Symbolum 'ipse faciet', which has been promised for several Frankfurt book fairs past, but in vain ('preteriere iam Nundinae Francofordienses plures, quibus singulis hoc promiserit. Sed frustra'), and complains that having given Monau a work by the Augsburg numismatist Adolph Occo he has received not so much as a single coin in return: 'Nothing: not even a word about coins. Those places [i.e. Breslau] are barren of coins: no doubt strikers of coins never went there'. He is most willing to have the portrait in the Theatrum coloured for his nephew, as he desires, but if Cole wishes to have the whole work coloured, it will be at his own expense. The letter goes on to refer to the Frankfurt publisher Nicolaeus Bassaeus, who is being slow to publish Cole's botanical work Syntagma herbarum encomiasticum (eventually published in Leiden in 1606), and concludes with a recommendation of a book by the Neapolitan polymath Giambattista della Porta.



Ortelius's nephew, Jacob Cole (1563-1628) was a member of the Dutch-Walloon refugee community in London, and followed his father's trade as a cloth merchant in Lime Street, whilst pursuing a wide range of scholarly interests and contacts. At his death he left a significant library and collections of prints, statues, coins and medals, much of which he had inherited from Ortelius. In a letter of 5 January (sold at Christie's, 11 December 2019, lot 7) Ortelius had promised Cole a copy of the latest augmented edition of the Theatrum, expressing his own preference for its uncoloured state. Ortelius is referring to the Latin edition of 1595, of which the first copies were delivered in early April: it was to be the last lifetime revision of his great work. Published in J.H. Hessels, Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivum (Cambridge University Press, 1887).





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12.07.2023 – 12.07.2023
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