Sohr-Berghaus - Hand-Atlas, 1892 r.

Sohr-Berghaus - Hand-Atlas, 1892 r. -

During the 19th and the first half of the 20st century German atlas cartography took a dominant position. The "Allgemeiner Hand-Atlas der ganzen Erde..." (later entitled "Grosser Handatlas des Himmels und der Erde"), completed 1807 and published by the "Geographisches Institut" of the "Landes-Industrie-Comptoir" (1791-1905) at Weimar, is considered the early beginning. 1820-45, particularly C.F. Weiland (1782-1847) gave shape to this huge volume of 24 to 16 inches, 1845-55 it was edited by the famous Heinrich Kiepert who was succeeded by Carl and Adolf Graef. The atlas has gone through 49 editions until 1880. Cartographic production in Germany up to 1870, was chiefly concentrated in Thuringia (Weimar, Gotha, Hildburghausen). Plates were prepared by a rather small group of engravers ("Stecher"), whose trade often stood in a rich family tradition; they were working for several houses or were publishers themselves, thus showing their names in atlases of different descent. During the 19th century engraving on copper for the best results was gradually replaced by lithography, which allows mechanical colour printing. Only a few publishers, like the "Bibliographisches Institut" at Hildburghausen, initially used steel engraving ("Stahlstich") for reproduction, which admits a higher number of copies without reduction of quality. In Britain, however, steel engraving was still applied for a long time, even after the invention of galvanizing copper plates around 1840. Properly speaking, all maps of the first half of the 19th century look alike: characters have the same ancient appearance; mountains resemble caterpillars or fir-branches. "Süd-West Deutschland und Schweiz"(1868) in "Stieler's Atlas", by C. Vogel (1828-97), may be considered the first atlas map being really new: the modern lettering by H. Eberhardt and the nearly tangible relief by W. Weiler set the new standard in cartography for the next decades. The first edition of Stieler's Atlas (named so after Adolf Stieler, 1775-1836) was issued in parts 1816-23 (50 maps) by Justus Perthes (established 1785 and still existing in Gotha after more than 200 years). It was a work of art as well as a work of science and still reproduced by copper-plate printing, when the printing industry had already changed to lithography. Not until 1905, in the 9th edition of Stieler's Atlas, had all maps adopted the new style. This edition was the first Stieler realised in full lithography. It had 100 maps: just double the number of the first edition. From a graphic point of view, this is the finest Stieler. The 108 maps in the 10th ("Century-") edition (1925), are over-crowded and often not very revealing: there is too little contrast between relief and place names (of which it had some 320,000!). The even more comprehensive international edition of Stieler's Atlas (1934-40), was unfortunately not completed. Oprawa naddarta, zakurzona. Strony pożółkłe, zakurzone, naddarte na krawędziach. Druk zachowany w stanie dobrym. Blok książki nie spójny.