Morocco, Marrakech Dapper/Van Meurs, 1676, Het Koninklyk Hof met een gedeelte der Stadt Marokko / The Roijall Palace with a parte of y.e Citij M.

Lovely large antique copper engraving with a panoramic view of the city of Marrakech with many animals and people on the foreground. With index in Dutch (upper left) and English (upper right). Published in the 1676 improved and most complete edition of Olfert Dapper´s "Naukeurige Beschrijvingen der Afrikaensche gewesten en Naukeurige beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Eylanden", popularly known as ´Description of Africa´.

Central to the view is the great tower of the royal palace, which the description says was wide enough to allow the King to ride on horseback to the top. Other principal buildings and details of the city are labelled with an alphanumeric key in Dutch and English. In the distance, the Atlas mountains can be seen, while the foreground features numerous travellers and merchants in camel caravans, and a group of servants/slaves collecting water from a well.

Olfert Dapper’s ‘Description of Africa’ was an ethnographic book which offered a detailed description of the parts of Africa known to Europeans in the mid-seventeenth century. Despite the work being regarded as one of the most important and detailed seventeenth-century publications on Africa, Dapper himself never actually visited the continent. Instead, he relied on the reports of Jesuit missionaries and Dutch explorers. The ‘Description of Africa’ was first published in 1668 by Jacob van Meurs in Amsterdam

Very good condition. Clear print, wide margins. Central fold, as published. Reverse side blank. Some small repairs/reinforcements in the area of the central fold with very minimal impact on the image.

Image 27x34,5cm, sheet 31,5x38,5cm