ALLERNEUESTER GEOGRAPHISCH- UND TOPOGRAPHISCHER SCHAU-PLATZ VON AFRICA UND OST-INDIEN

Without the frontispiece (which is often missing), engraved title page, (i blank), (20), 345, (4 register) pages, oblong folio (333 x 390 mm), 115 full-page engraved plates, maps and plans, contemporary full vellum, title gilt on the spine, page edges dyed dark red, some pages and plates browned and foxed, overall a very good copy.

A South African Bibliography, Volume 2, page 554:Splendid geographical and topgraphical album describing and depicting all the factories and stations of the Dutch V.O.C. in Africa and Asia.

Johann Wolfgang Heydt, draftsman and engraver, construction director and surveyor. Heydt's biography is difficult to grasp.Round 1733 Heydt entered the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), left Texel in 1734 in the direction of Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Heydt spent several years there and in other African and Asian estates belonging to the company. He found temporary employment there as a painter. Around 1736/1737 Heydt left Ceylon for Batavia, where he rose to become the draftsman and architect of the East India Company in the service of the local governor Adrian Valckenier. Around 1741 he returned to Europe. Here he was able to continue his work as an architect – as Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürstlicher Building Director at Wilhermsdorf near Nuremberg. (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Library 2009)