This original antique map is both scarce and unusual. It covers the region of present-day Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran with a part of the Arabian Peninsula. It is presented as if on a scroll, hanging above a panoramic view of Ishphahan, an important city on the trade routes across Persia. It is decorated on either side with garlands of fruits representing the land of plenty for which the region was renowned. Engraved by Melchior Haffner, it was published in 1684 in Haffner and Wagner's 'Delineatio provinciarum Pannoniae et Imperii Turcici in Oriente'.
The map is based on an earlier map by Sanson from 1652, his map of "L'Empire du Sophy des Perses".
Melchior Haffner (1660- November 1, 1704) was a prominent German engraver active in Augsburg during the second half of the 17th century. Haffner was born in Ulm and apprenticed as an engraver under his father of the same name. He relocated to Augsburg where he began his own successful engraving business. He appears to have worked mostly for book publishers producing portraits, frontispieces, and bookplates, as well as a few maps. Several important maps are included in his corpus including maps of China issued for Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688) and the maps and other engravings included in Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's Les Six Voyages, and the maps for Johann Wagner's 'Delineato'.
Johann Christoph Wagner (1640 – c. 1701) was a German theologian, mathematician, and writer active in the 17th century. Wagner was born in Nuremberg where his father, Christoph Wagner, was a cantor at St. Egidien. Wagner studied in Altdorf where he wrote works on astrological medicine and the occult properties of abbreviations. Unable to find work in Nuremberg he took to published calendars for astrological work. Around 1680 he relocated to Augsburg where he published, among other things, his well-known descriptions of the orient. He wrote the text for'Delineatio provinciarum Pannoniae et Imperii Turcici in Oriente'.
