Title Print for Portfolio 19 of the Atlas Ottens (Artois, Hainaut, Namur, Limburg, Luxembourg, and Spanish Gelderland)

This print was used here as the title page for a part of an unbound atlas; a collection of cartographic and topographical prints and drawings. Originally, however, the print was intended as a title page for a bound atlas with maps of Friesland, which is why part of the following description relates to that context. On the pedestal in the center stands the personification of cartography, holding a globe in her hand which she measures with a compass. Resting on her upper thigh is a sheet with the handwritten part of the atlas (originally a map of Friesland). At her feet lie a measuring chain, a circular (land) surveying instrument, and a portrait of William IV of Orange-Nassau. Below it, the handwritten title of this part of the atlas. She keeps a watchful eye on Fickleness (Wispelturigheid), bottom left. Originally, he represents the fickleness to which the Frisian land had to submit: a forest could suddenly be underwater, for his body melts due to the salt water of the sea.