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New Jersey. SOTZMANN, D. F./ EBELING, C.D. [Hamburg: 1797] New Jersey Entworfen von D.F. Sotzmann. 25 ½ x 18 ½ inches. Copperplate engraving with period wash color; mended split left margin just entering surface, some staining, wear top & bottom margins, very good overall. A rare and elegantly engraved map of New Jersey, and although published in Germany, it was remarkably the best available of the state in the Federal period. While based on Faden’s masterful 1777 “The Province of New Jersey,” the Sotzmann map provided key updates, such as the addition of towns, meeting houses, a revised northern boundary with New York, and a re-drawing of the Cape May peninsula. Also, this map’s superb engraving transformed Faden’s somewhat cluttered map into a much clearer, accessible work. The Sotzmann-Ebeling state maps are "among the rarest of cartographic Americana for the closing decade of the eighteenth century." "Only a small number of American collections, among them the Library of Congress and Harvard University, have copies of all ten published maps" (Ristow). To produce these maps, Ebeling conducted a tireless correspondence with American mapmakers to obtain the most advanced maps of the states. This map was one of only 10 produced by Ebeling and Sotzmann out of a proposed 18 for the Atlas von Nordamerika, which was to supplement a multi-volume history of America. Since the atlas was never completed, the maps were published separately, accounting for their rarity. The maps are also marked by a precision and elegance in their engraving that far exceeded that of the maps they were based on. In fact, many were the best maps available of individual American states at the time. Daniel Fredrich Sotzmann (1754-1840) was born in the Berlin suburb of Spandau and was apprenticed to Engineer Captain Materne. "He received training in engraving as well as drafting, and his earliest cartographic contributions were, in fact, as an engraver. From 1773 to 1778 Sotzmann was a building superintendent in Potsdam, and in 1778 he was appointed secretary and architect of the General-Tabaksadministration. Sotzmann was named geographer of the Akademie der Wissenschaft in Berlin in 1786. He became secretary and controller of the academy's Engineering Department, later the Military Department, in 1787" (Ristow page 177). Ristow, W. American Maps and Mapmakers, pp. 169-177; Snyder, J. P. Mapping of New Jersey, p. 61; Delaney Nova Caesarea, pages 33-37; Rumsey 13124.
Price: $5,500.00