1750 KRUIKIUS, N. / J. - 't Hooge Heemraedschap van Delfland met alle de Steden, Dorpen, Ambachten, Litmaten, Polders, etc

The so-called Cruquius map is a wall map of the Delfland water board district. It ranks among the outstanding water-board maps of the eighteenth century. Commissioned by the Hoogheemraadschap van Delfland, the brothers Nicolaas and Jacob Cruquius prepared it after an extensive survey conducted between 1701 and 1710. The resulting work combined exceptional topographical precision with the elaborate decorative treatment characteristic of the finest Dutch cartography.
The map comprises 25 engraved sectional sheets that form a wall map measuring approximately 230 × 280 cm when assembled. Executed at the remarkably detailed 1:10,000 scale, it records the district with a thoroughness far beyond an ordinary regional map. Its importance does not lie merely in its impressive dimensions, but in the quality and density of the geographical information it preserves.

Extending across the Delfland landscape between the North Sea coast and the Maas, the map includes Delft, The Hague, Schiedam, Vlaardingen, Maassluis, and numerous surrounding villages. The map shows coastal dunes, settlements, and cultivated countryside within a detailed network of waterways and field boundaries. With north toward the upper right, the composition shows the North Sea along the upper edge and the Maas to the left.

The map meticulously delineates individual properties, farmsteads, orchards, gardens, roads, paths, canals, sluices, dykes, and drainage channels. This extraordinary level of detail makes the work an invaluable record of the early eighteenth-century landscape and the infrastructure used to manage land and water. Particularly striking is the thorough depiction of the ditches defining individual parcels: the map reveals not simply the region’s geography, but the structure of its agricultural landscape.

Rich heraldic and allegorical ornament complements the scientific content. Large armorial panels honor the water board’s officials, while scenes along the lower border evoke agriculture, fishing, and hunting. Pieter Haringh supplied the coat-of-arms designs, and Arnold Houbraken designed the remaining decoration, which Pieter Sluyter engraved. A team including Luggert van Anse, Thomas Doesburgh, Jacobus Deur, and Johannes Deur undertook the cartographic engraving. These embellishments give the map a ceremonial character as well as an administrative purpose.

Wall Maps

Wall maps were found in the interiors of wealthy businessmen. Wall maps occupied a prominent place in contemporary Dutch culture, serving as icons of affluence and intellectual curiosity.
One of the leading lights of the era, Constantijn Huygens (1596-87), remarked how he employed his own set of Blaeu's wall maps of the continents as a tool to enlighten his children: "To encourage them even more, I had the four parts of the world by Willem Blaeu mounted in my entrance hall, where they often played, in order to provide them with a fixed image of the world and its division."
Willem Blaeu's wall maps are considered among the most influential and artistically virtuosic masterpieces of the great era of baroque cartography. His enterprise maintained close connections with intellectuals and political leaders across Europe, granting him privileged access to the most advanced geographical knowledge. Evidence of their fame may be their appearance in several of Johannes Vermeer's paintings.

A striking feature of the relatively small number of paintings that comprise the oeuvre of Johannes Vermeer is the prominent place accorded to maps and globes. Maps used as wall hangings in contemporary Dutch houses served purposes beyond providing cartographic information. Maps also expressed status, promoted a better understanding of history or politics, or replaced paintings. When Vermeer painted his works, Amsterdam was the world center of map-making. Among the most impressive works were Willem Blaeu's wall maps.
The pride-of-place wall maps in Dutch homes appear most clearly in a half-dozen or so of Vermeer's exquisite paintings, as well as in contemporary scenes such as Pieter de Hooch's A Woman Drinking with Two Men (1658) in the National Gallery. These views of everyday life bear witness to an almost totemic cult of maps.

Soon, libraries and the offices of the wealthy and nobility across Europe had wall maps. Wall maps also hung in many places in America in the eighteenth century, for instance, in the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia.
By the nineteenth century, Americans used wall maps throughout the Country. They hung in government offices, public meeting places, schools and in some homes. Early on in the century, wall maps showed the expanding country, with its natural features and political divisions, roads, canals and then railroads. Because these maps were designed for practical use and their large format made detailed study easier, map makers updated them regularly to keep them as current and accurate as possible.