JACOB (Yaaqov; Yaacov; Yaakov), Abraham bar (b.1650). [Map of the Holy Land from: Seder Haggadah Shel Pasah / The Passover Haggadah. Amsterdam: Moses Wesel, 1712.]

Rare copy of one of the earliest copper-engraved maps of the Holy Land with Hebrew text. Jacob was a Christian pastor from the Rhineland who converted to Judaism and moved to Amsterdam where he became a copper engraver. The map was created for a Haggadah first printed in 1695, considered to be a milestone in the history of Hebrew printing and illustration, introducing a whole new iconographic approach to Haggadah illustration. The subsequent popularity of Bar Jacob's images ensured later reprints; the present example is from the 1712 second edition. The cartography is based on Van Adrichom's map of the Holy Land, and is indicative of the confluence of the Dutch tradition of mapmaking, illustrating Bibles with maps, and the rise of Hebrew printing in Amsterdam. Abraham J. Karp notes that 'a special feature of this map, that seems heretofore unnoticed is bar Jacob's treatment of the Exodus not as leaving but returning. He depicts the traditional Goshen to the Jordan route, but adds another one beginning in Hebron and ending in Goshen, the route the family of Jacob took to Egypt. The route is marked by the only historical vignette on the map, a wagon representing those which Joseph sent to bring his family to Egypt' (From the Ends of the Earth. Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress, p.80). Fuks 521; Laor 876; Yaari 59; Yerushalmi 59-62; Yudlov 93.

Engraved map, verso blank, oriented with east at the top and with the Mediterranean in the lower portion of the map, Egypt placed to the right, and the Promised Land in the top half of the sheet, showing the route of the Exodus, the 41 encampments of the Israelites listed within ornate scroll-work cartouche, at the centre-bottom the prophet Jonah is shown about to be swallowed by the whale, and then just underneath in another image, emerges from the mouth of the whale landing on dry land, three lines of 18th-century French manuscript text in lower border, 272 x 485mm (plate mark), 320 x 508mm (sheet).

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