(NETHERLANDS.) Nicolaas and Jacob Cruquius. T Hooge Heemraedschap van Delflant. Atlas-format wall map of the vicinity of Delft and The Hague in western Netherlands. Double-page engraved key map in stunning original hand-color accented with gold, and 27 double-page engraved sheets (25 maps, 2 title banners). Folio, 22x14 inches, contemporary gilt-tooled mottled calf by the Star Bindery of the Hague, light wear; barely an internal fault; another example of the key sheet, uncolored, loosely inserted. Presentation copy to Gerard van Assendelft, secretary of the Delftlant Baljuwschap, as testified by a contemporary note on laid paper, signed on the reverse by his heirs and dated 1772. Delft, 1712 [1750] Fine copy of one of the most comprehensive and impressively detailed achievements of large-scale 18th-century urban cartography. If joined, the wall map would measure over 8 feet wide, a scale large enough for a viewer to become immersed in the exacting detail of the illustrated towns and smaller villages, estates, homes and public buildings, personal gardens and agricultural fields, roads, dikes, dams, canals, polders, and other topographic features. The side panels are comprised of elaborate coats of arms for ten regional district officials; at the right is a spectacular compass rose featuring a world map and celestial elements; and the lower border is a decorative band representing domestic agriculture, hunting, fishing, beekeeping, etc., after designs by Arnold Houbraken.
The present binding can be identified as a work by the Hague-based Star Bindery (Sterbinderij) by comparison of several hand tools in use at that studio in the mid-to-late eighteenth century (van Leeuwen rolls II and IX; tools 4, 6, 17a, 17b, 22, 24, 28, 29, and 30). Jan Storm van Leeuwen, De achttiende-eeuwse Haagse boekband in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek en het Rijksmuseum, pages 101-102, 405-406; Dutch Decorated Bookbinding, vol. IIa, pages 145-155.