New Additions August 2011

J G Krünitz (publisher) - Johann Gottlieb Immanuel Breitkopf (author & mapmaker)

[1777]1795

Das Reich der Liebe / zweyter Landchartensatz-/ Versuch / Aus Breitkoipf's Buchdr / in Leipzig 1777

23 x 18 cms. Original wash colour. Faint vertical fold. Paper very slightly toned but overall a pleasing originally coloured example.

A reissue and second state of Johann Breitkopf's charming 1777 map of the Kingdom of Love, extracted from Vol LX of J G Krünitz's Oeconomische Encyclopaedie, probably the Pauli edition, Berlin 1795.

German physician, J G Krünitz’s Economic Encyclopaedia published between 1773 and 1858 in 242 volumes, represents one of the most important German cultural & historical references and source books of the 18th & 19th Centuries, forming a comprehensive alphabetic resumé of every aspect of contemporary German life, business, and commerce and agriculture on both a State, City, and domestic level. Vol. 60 covered the letter L from Land-haken (Hook) to Land-messer (Surveyor). The finely engraved plates in this volume included architectural illustrations of buildings, building plan designs and classical architectural facades, as well as detailed sketches of surveying instruments, circles, theodolites and the like. Further diagrams demonstrated recommended surveying techniques. In the midst of these plates were also to be found three contemporarily coloured folding maps, one by D F Sotzmann showing the environs of Oppeln in Polish Silesia, a second entitled Gegend von Leipzig, originally published in 1776 and a third map, perhaps the most interesting of all & the one described here : a later state (with new plate numbers & annotations added in the border at the top right and bottom left corners of the engraving) of Johann Gottlieb Immanuel Breitkopf’s fanciful map of the Kingdom of Love entitled Das Reich der Liebe.  

This map curiosity, together with a second allegorical map, and the third of the surroundings of Leipzig, formed a trio that were originally engraved and published by Breitkopf in Leipzig in the late 1770's (this map in booklet form with detailed description) to demonstrate his development of a new system of type-setting and map printing using moveable types.  

A fine head and shoulders portrait of Breitkopf, engraved by S Halle, complete with vignette illustrations of his revolutionary new printing press, his printed maps and his printed music (for which Breitkopf was equally famous), was to also be found bound in at the front of the Vol LX of Krünitz's Encyclopaedia.

In the map itself, the would-be pilgrim sets out from the Land of Youth (Land der Jugend) , whence the Rivers of Wishes (Fluss der Wünsche) & Fountain of Joys (Quell der Freuden) have their sources. At the borders of the Land of Youth the traveller encounters the Stone of Warning (Warnungstein). The journey of Love might lead into six different Lands - Land of Happy Love (Land der Glücklichen Liebe), through the midst of which runs the River of Pleasure (Freudenstrom); the Land of Haughtiness & Pride (Land der Hagelstolze) with settlements such as Stupidity (Dummheitsdorf) and Refusal of an offer of marriage (Korbgebe); the District of Fixed Ideas (Gebiet der Fixen Ideen) with sites such as the City of Dreams (Stadt der Träume), the Bridge of Hope (Brücke der Hoffnung) and the Pass of Sighs (Seufzerflur) through the mountains on its western borders; the Land of Pleasures (Land der Lüste) with the field of intoxication (Taumelsfeld), Infirmity House (Schwachheim) and Illness Valley (Krankenthal); and finally the worst of all territories, the Land of Unhappy Love (Land der Traurenden Liebe) through which runs the River of Tears (Thränenfluss), and lying adjacent to it, the Desert and Morass of Melancholy (Wüste der Schwermuth / Morast der Tiefsinns) on the shores of the Sea of Despair (Meer der Verzweiflung). On its eastern shores the settlement of Short-time-to-death (Totenweilen), in a no-man’s land whose only other landmarks are the settlements of Separation (Scheidung), Hatred (Hass), Indignation (Unwill) and Quarrel (Zänkershall) beside the Heath of Vexation (Verdrüssliche Heide).

A copy of Breitkopf's original printed description of the Reich der Liebe will be offered with this map.

A charming item, of some importance and significance not only in the specific context of the "Love map" genre but also in the technical advances in printing that it's production and publication represented.

Refs : Gillian Hill : Cartographical Curiosities #66, pp 54 (ill) & 58.