Title Print for Portfolio 22 of the Atlas Ottens (Amsterdam, Part 3: Town Hall on the Dam, statues, etc.)

This print is used here as a 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. On her upper thigh rests a sheet with the handwritten part of the atlas (originally a map of Friesland). At her feet a measuring chain, a round (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 adapt: a forest could suddenly be underwater, because his body melts due to the salty water of the sea.