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Description

Nice example of the first edition of Seutter's map of the Middle British Colonies, based upon Lewis Evans' extremely rare map of 1749.

Seutter's map is a notable pre-Revolutionary War era map based on Lewis Evans' map of 1749, one of the first and most important maps of the region. This German version had wider circulation than the Evans map and therefore significant influence on the European view of the colonies. It extends from New England to the estuaries of the Delaware and Chesapeake. The British Colonies are confined east of the Appalachian Mountains and are depicted with some interesting, and not entirely accurate, boundary configurations. New Hampshire's entire eastern border is the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts is just below New Hampshire, but does not include Boston or Cape Cod, which are shown as part of Connecticut. New York is divided into three sections and includes the western part of Massachusetts and Vermont. The map is graphically engraved to show mountains, forests, colonial settlements and Indian villages.

Two ornate cartouches fill opposite corners of the map. The title cartouche includes an elaborate engraving featuring William Penn bartering with the natives and indigenous flora and fauna. Lotter engraved the map for his father-in-law Mattaeus Seutter, probably in 1750. After 1756 when he took over the business, Lotter replaced his father-in-law's name with his own name in the cartouche. This example includes Seutter's name and names the Susquehanna River.

Matthaus Seutter Biography

Matthäus Seutter (1678-1757) was a prominent German mapmaker in the mid-eighteenth century. Initially apprenticed to a brewer, he trained as an engraver under Johann Baptist Homann in Nuremburg before setting up shop in his native Augsburg. In 1727 he was granted the title Imperial Geographer. His most famous work is Atlas Novus Sive Tabulae Geographicae, published in two volumes ca. 1730, although the majority of his maps are based on earlier work by other cartographers like the Homanns, Delisles, and de Fer. 

Alternative spellings: Matthias Seutter, Mathaus Seutter, Matthaeus Seutter, Mattheus Seutter