Title Print for Portfolio 5 of the Atlas Ottens (Utrecht)

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, so part of the following description relates to that context. In the center on a pedestal stands the personification of cartography, holding a globe 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 are a measuring chain, a round (land) surveying instrument, and a portrait of William IV of Orange-Nassau. Below that is the handwritten title of this part of the atlas. She keeps a watchful eye on Wispelturigheid (Wispeltuer) in the lower left. Originally, he represents the capriciousness to which the Frisian land had to adapt: a forest could suddenly be underwater, because his body melts from the salt water of the sea.