Rarity

This is the only known example of these city views, other than the imperfect segments mounted on the few surviving copies of the wall map. The views are lacking in all collections of early city views, even the foremost ones.

Seventeenth century Amsterdam book and map sellers had a very efficient and effective distribution system to sell their books and maps all over Europe. They would exhibit their products at the yearly bookfair in Franfurt, where colleague book and map sellers would put in sizeable orders that would mostly be shipped to them after the fair, over land or by sea (depending oon the destination), to Scandinavia, to Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Eastern Europe and so on. These buyers would then resell the products in their city. Wall maps could be ordered in two versions. One version was to order them assembled by the maker (mounted on linen and attached to wooden rollers, colored or uncolored) and shipped rolled in a long wooden crate. Alternatively, cheaper and more popular, they could be ordered as a construction kit, in separate sheet segments (colored or uncolored), with an instruction booklet on how to assemble the sheets and in what order (think Ikea). Separate sheets and loose maps were generally packed in quantity in wooden barrels, like books were, to facilitate easy handling of the considerable weight of paper.

As expected, loose segments of wall maps have a much greater chance of surviving the damages of time to assembled wall maps, and they are often the only examples of what a wall map would have looked like in pristine condition. It was however irresistable for the resellers or the end customers to assemble them, thus fast-tracking their demise. It is therefore that loose segments of wall maps are even rarer than assembled wall maps.

Not in any collection of views of Jerusalem, Middle East, Gulf States, Macao, Moluccas, Portuguese India, Indian Ocean or VOC.