Ducatus Slesvicensis in omnes suas Praefecturas Circulos et Provincias...

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Original antique copper engraving hand colored in outline and wash when published. Old colored map of the Duchy of Schleswig by Frederick de Wit. Shows northern Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark. With Kiel, Flensburg, Schleswig, Husum, Sonderburg, Aabenraa, Hadersleben, Ribe and the islands of Nordstrand, Pellworm, Föhr, Sylt, Romo and Fanö. A beautiful title cartouche at the top right. Frederik de Wit (* 1610; † 1698), also Frederic, Frederick or Fredericus, was a Dutch publisher, engraver and cartographer. He founded his company in 1648, at the height of the Golden Age in Amsterdam, and was editor of world atlases from around 1670. His first published map was that of Denmark in 1659. This was followed by a world map from 1660. Further dating of his atlases is difficult. They appeared from 1670 and included 17 to 190 maps. The nautical atlases included 27 nautical charts and appeared from 1675. In 1666 he acquired various engraving plates from Hubertus Quellinus (1619–87) from Antwerp, including a depiction of the new town hall in Amsterdam. He also purchased numerous cards from the Ottens brothers and sold some to them himself. His Atlas of the Netherlands Nieuw kaertboeck van de The "Stedeboeken" (city books that contained panoramas, detailed views and city maps) only appeared from 1695, at a time when his son had taken over the business. The idea probably came from the father and company founder. The family business flourished under the management of the company founder's son, Frederik de Wit (* 1630; † 1706 in Amsterdam). He became one of the most important publishers of maps and atlases of his time. Through his marriage to the Amsterdam citizen Maria van der Waag, he acquired the city's civil rights in 1661. Three years later he was admitted to the Guild of St. Lucas. Although he was subject to certain prejudices as a Catholic and did not always have an easy time in the early Calvinist Netherlands of the 17th century, his name was found on the city list of "good men" (a kind of lay judge or lay judge - a position of trust) from 1694 to 1704 the city government). After the decline of the printing houses of Joan Blaeu and Jan Jansson, which had dominated the market until then, de Wit acquired a large number of valuable copper printing plates at auctions, with which he produced, among other things, the two editions of the Stedeboeken of the Netherlands published from 1698, 124 city maps and views of the first Edition and 128 of the second. The city books of Europe with 132 city maps and views were mainly Jansson copper plates, which de Wit had purchased from the Jansson-Waesberg company[4]. These included the old plates from Braun en Hogenberg Civitates Orbis Terrarum, which gave de Wit the opportunity to reprint these too. Soon de Wit was able to deliver almost every type of cartography: from nautical maps and atlases to city maps and city panoramas. His work was characterized by a particularly fine engraving and a noble color design, which make his works interesting to this day, which were reproduced in large numbers and represent a high value in their originals. Until his death, he lived on Amsterdam's Kalverstraat in his house called "De Witte Pascaert" (the white nautical chart). His son and heir Frederik de Wit continued to run the company after his father's death from 1706, but sold a large part of the copper printing plates in 1708 - probably for financial reasons. In 1721 the company passed to Covens & Mortier. This meant that card production moved from the Netherlands, which had dominated this field of work for decades, to France. The output of the House of Wit was consequently oriented towards the north. It was already like this with the ancient Greeks, but then in the Middle Ages there came a phase in which the east was at the top of world maps, because in the east was the holy city of Jerusalem. The word "orientate" comes from this time: Orient is the East, whoever orients himself, and thus his inner map, points to the East. The north-south axis became established in cartography, because only with the advent of the great seafarers and with the introduction of the compass (which we also owe to the Arabs, who in turn got it from the Chinese) did a change occur. The compass needle pointing from north to south contributed significantly to the fact that the maps were aligned accordingly. The publisher was one of the first in Europe to consistently implement this. (Wikipedia)