Wahrhaffter und Accurater entworffener Plan und Grund-Riss der Hauptstadt Prag in dem Königreiche Böhmen wie Solche von dem Kaÿserlichen Königlichen Preussischen Auxiliar Trouppen im Monath September Ao 1744 belagert und erobert worden. . .
[Prague: ca. 1744.]
Pot folio (16 ½” x 11 13/16”, 419mm x 301mm). Manuscript map in ink and watercolor, edged in orange silk ribbon. Watermark “C Honig” countermarked with a fleur-de-lys.
With early folds (flattened) and some small losses at the intersections and along the lower edge of the central fold. Binding mount pasted verso. Pin-holes at the top corners and at the middle of the lower edge. Scattered foxing. Small paper patch to the verso.
The War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748) is at its core a conflict of gender. Since its establishment ca. 500, the Salic Law (named for the Salian Franks, who settled along the North Sea in modern Belgium–The Netherlands–France), which governed the Holy Roman Empire among many other states, has prevented women from inheriting land, property or titles. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (1685–1740; r. 1711–1740) had no surviving male heir, and so issued an edict in 1713: the Pragmatic Sanction. This provided for his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to rule as Holy Roman Empress suo jure; it was, indeed, the preoccupation of his reign. This resulted in what today we might call a “constitutional crisis:” an heir for whom the Electors were unable to vote by reason of her sex.
The War was global in its scope, being fought not only in “Austria” (a metonym for the Hapsburg Empire that largely includes modern Austria, but was much larger, embracing northern Italy, western Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany and Belgium) but in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well as India and North America (as King George’s War, the third of the French and Indian Wars). Its immediate consequences were slight — the assertion of Prussian control over Silesia (essentially western Poland, surrounding Wrocław/Breslau) and a consolidation of Spanish Bourbon positions through Northern Italy — but ultimately the War set the stage for the great realignment of alliances of the XVIIIc: the 1756 Diplomatic Revolution.
The present manuscript map (with West at the top of the sheet) drawn by Gregers Daa Trellund (ca. 1697–1760), a Danish military engineer, depicts the third and final siege of Prague, right at the heart of the long war. The first, in 1741, saw the French sieze control;[1] the Austrians took the city back in December of 1742. Finally Frederick II “the Great” led the Prussian forces against the city, bombarding it for three days; it fell to him on the 16th of September, 1744. Daa Trellund is careful to show not only the star-fortifications of the city proper and her garrisons to the West, but also which battalions bombarded individual gates, buildings or sections of the walls. East of the city (toward the lower edge) we see Galgenberg (Czech: Šibeniční vrch), “Gallows Hill,” complete with a hanged man. At the top right is a key, with 54 sites of interest ranged in even columns of 27.
Daa Trellund was presumably working as a mercenary cartographer for Frederick. The sheet is watermarked C. Honig, presumably Cornelis Honig (1683–1755), whose “De verkulde Bijkorf” (the Golden Beehive) was one of the most celebrated paper-mills in Europe. An earlier (1733) manuscript map by Daa Trellund, depicting Trankebar, is in the Maritime Museum (Museet for Søfart 1949:0253) in Copenhagen. It is considerably less finished and decorative; we must assume that the present map was made for presentation, trimmed as it is in silk and with such subtle detail of elevation and landscape. Perhaps it was presented to Frederick to commemorate his victory.
[1] The key notes their additions to the city’s walls: “NB die Werck, so von den Franzose neu-angelegt worden, seÿnd mit Lit: a. verzeichnet” (Note: the fortifications, which were so newly built by the French, being indicated with the letter “a.”)
Item #JLR0423
Price: $7,500