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BELLIN, Jacques Nicolas (1703-72)

[North America] Carte de l'Amerique Septentrionale Depuis le 28 Degré de Latitude jusqu'au 72

Paris: J. N. Bellin, 1755. Copper-engraved map, with original outline colour, in very good condition, with facsimile repairs to upper left cartouche, with official stamp of the "Depot de la Marine". Sheet size: 25 1/2 x 37 inches.

A very important and highly attractive large-scale map of North America by one of the eighteenth-century's greatest cartographers

The present map is one of the most fascinating and influential maps of North America to be made in the years shortly before the voyages of James Cook ushered in a new era of exploration that defined the west coast of the continent. This is also one of the last maps to depict the Franco-American empire, which was then at its greatest extent, immediately before it was entirely lost to Britain and Spain in the Seven Years War (1756-63). The map embraces the entire region from the northern reaches of the Gulf of Mexico up to the lower regions of the Canadian Arctic, and extends from California in the southwest to Greenland and Iceland in the north Atlantic. Critcally, this map is perhaps the finest record of the travels of the Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varrennes, the Sieur de La Vérendrye and his sons, François and Louis. The La Vérendryes explored the heart of the continent from the upper Missouri River basin to the Rockies from 1731 to 1742. They followed the "Assiniboile" (Assiniboine) River deep into the Prairies into modern-day Alberta. Further to the south, they explored the country of the Mandan tribe in the Dakotas and Montana, and the map notes that the partially delineated "Riv. des Mantans" was indeed not the source of the Missouri River. The Rockies are indicated by the notation of the "Montagne de Pierre Brillante" (the Mountain of the Shining Stone), a native name inspired by the gleaming snow-capped peaks that led the range to be known as the 'Shining Mountains' before they acquired their modern name. The massive lakes of Manitoba, such as "Lac Ouinipique" (Lake Winnipeg) are delineated, however the map shows the great rivers to their north as running into the lakes, when in reality these rivers flowed into Hudson's Bay. Various French fur trading posts, such as the "Fort de La Reine" and "Fort Charles" are located on the waterways of the interior. The La Vérendryes maintained notably excellent relations with the Cree and Assiniboine peoples, however language difficulties caused the Frenchmen to misinterpret geographical information that was conveyed to them by the natives, and this both created new and reinforced existing mythologies regarding the lands beyond the Rockies. While a large notation indicates that it is not known whether the area in the northwestern portion of their map is land or sea, an area of undefined parameters is labeled as "La Mer de l'Ouest". This imaginary basin was conceived of by mapmakers in the late seventeenth-cenury and the La Vérendryes thought that a 'River of the West' connected this sea to the Pacific through one of two inlets that were allegedly discovered by Spanish mariners. These two locations are noted on the map along with the dates of their discoveries as the "Entrée de Martin d'Aguilar 1602" and the "Entrée de Juan de Fuca 1592," the latter approximating the location of an actual strait that still goes by the same name. The portrayal of California notes Sir Francis Drake's discovery of San Francisco Bay in 1578 and Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo's naming of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1542. Further north, an isolated strip identifies the coastline of what is now the Alaskan Panhandle, as discovered by the Russian mariners Vitus Bering and Alexei Chrikov in 1741. The advanced coverage of the Spanish territory of New Mexico and the Mississippi Basin, the latter comprising the French colony of Louisiana, is based on renderings by Guillaume de L'Isle and Jean-Baptiste D'Anville respectively. Bellin's depiction of the Great Lakes and eastern Canada is the same as that conveyed in his celebrated contemporary regional maps of the subjects. All of the Thirteen British colonies of the eastern seaboard are shown in great detail. The great artistic virtue of the map is confirmed by its adornment with two large cartouches lavishly decorated in the French rococo style.

Bellin, then the official hydrographer to Louis XV, and as master of the Dépot des Cartes et Plans de La Marine, had access to the most advanced cartographic resources available to the French state. The present map is one of his finest works, and was included as part of the L'Hydrographie Française, a great sea atlas, published by Bellin in two volumes from 1755 to 1766. It was also sold separately, as indicated in the lower right corner of the map for a price of "Cinquante Sols." Bellin was so highly regarded that the British (who were almost always at war with France) made him a member of their Royal Society.

Heidenreich & Dahl, The Map Collector, Vol.19 (1982), p.5; Tooley, Map Collectors' Circle 96, 764; Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America, 582.

#19705$3,000.00
 
 
CORONELLI, Vincenzo Maria (1650-1718)

[North America] America Settentrionale Colle Nuove Scoperte fin all' anno 1688

Venice: V.M. Coronelli, [1690, or later]. Copper-engraved map, on two joined sheets, in excellent condition. Sheet size: 24 x 35 inches.

A superlative impression of Coronelli's important and innovative map, and a foundation map for any serious collection of the cartography of North America

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, a Venetian scholar and Minorite Friar, became one of the most celebrated map and globe makers of his era. Throughout his industrious life he produced more than one-hundred terrestrial and celestial globes, several hundred maps, and a wealth of cartographic publications. In 1683, he completed the Marly Globes for Louis XIV, the largest and most magnificent globes ever made. In 1684 he founded the Academia Cosmografica degli Argonauti, the first geographical society, and was appointed Cosmographer of the Republic of Venice. He published two atlases, the Atlante Veneto (Venice, 1691) and the Isolario (1696-98), and compiled the first encyclopedia to be arranged alphabetically.

This magnificent map of North America, published in the Atlante Veneto, is widely considered to be one of Coronelli's finest maps, and is cartographically similar to the scene depicted on his famous globe of 1688. Printed initially on two separate sheets, the present example has been carefully joined to form a wonderful unified image. The map is beautifully preserved in its uncoloured state, as originally intended. Artistically, it is a masterpiece of late Baroque engraving. Its title cartouche, featuring scenes of gods blessing this era of European expansion evinces the sumptuous style of Coronelli's Venice. Finely engraved scenes of native Americans and real or imagined beasts adorn the land and seas.

Apart from displaying a fine aesthetic sense, Coronelli has rendered the continent with far greater geographical detail than his contemporaries, having benefited enormously from his favour at the French court and his publishing partnership with Paris cartographer Jean-Baptiste Nolin. The Great Lakes are drawn with unrivalled accuracy, drawing on information gleaned in 1673 by the Quebecois explorer Louis Jolliet, and his traveling companion, the French-born Jesuit Jacques Marquette. The Mississippi basin is rendered with great detail, reflecting French discoveries, most notably those by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle on his first expedition of 1679-82. This map depicts La Salle's dramatic misplacement of the mouth of the Mississippi 600 miles to the west of its true location. Importantly, it is on the western portion of the map where Coronelli has added the most significant amount of new information, drawn mostly from a highly important manuscript map by Diego Dionisio de Peñalosa Briceño y Berdugo, which included numerous previously unrecorded place names and divided the Rio Grande into the Rio Norte and the Rio Bravo in the south. The manuscript map was probably originally prepared by Peñalosa between 1671 and 1687 as part of his attempts to interest the French King Louis XIV in his plans to mount a military expedition against New Spain. The most prominent geographical detail of the map is California's appearance as a massive island, this map being one of the best renderings of this beloved misconception. The precise geographical details are enlivened by the presence of numerous captions noting discoveries or details of the terrain.

Burden, The Mapping of North America II, 643; Burden, Mapping the West, pp.43-47; Cumming,The Exploration of North America, p.148; Leighly, California as an Island, 88; Martin & Martin, Maps of Texas and the Southwest , p.87; McLaughlin, California as an Island, 103; Portinaro & Knirsch, The Cartography of North America, pl.CII; Phillips, A List of Maps of America, p. 795; Shirley, The Mapping of the World, 548; Tooley, The Mapping of America p.125; Cf. Tooley, Maps & Map-Makers (1979 ed.), p. 21; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West I, 70

#18543$22,000.00
 
 
DUVAL, Pierre (1618-1683)

[The Americas and the Western Hemisphere] L'Amerique Suivant les dernieres Relations avec les Routes que l'on tient pour Les Indes Occidentales

Paris: M[ademois]elle DuVal, dated 1679 [but 1688]. Copper-engraved wall map, with original outline colour, from Duval's "Carte de Geographie," on four unjoined sheets, expertly re-margined with laid paper on two sides of each sheet, compensating margins at the places where the maps were previously joined. Each sheet 19 1/8 x 23 5/8 inches, if joined the sheets would form a map measuring 34 x 45 inches.

A magnificent seventeenth century wall map of the Americas and the Western Hemisphere by one of the greatest French cartographers

This superb map of the New World evinces mid-seventeenth century French geographical knowledge, based largely upon the work of the great French cartographer, Nicolas Sanson, Duval's father-in-law. It is also an excellent example of the French cartographic aesthetic, exalting clarity and classical elegance. Duval, with some geographical modernizations, based this map on his smaller 1655 rendering of the same subject.

California is depicted as an island, as rendered by contemporary Dutch cartographers such as Frederick de Wit and Carel Allard. A speculative aspect also dominates the portrayal of the rest of the American Southwest, such as the labelling of the mythical land of "Quivira" on the mainland, and the depiction of the Rio Grande as having its source in the fictitious "Lac de Conibas," and its terminus in the Gulf of California.

The depiction of the American Northeast is somewhat more progressive than that shown by Sanson. New York, Boston, Cape Cod, Virginia and Maryland are each specifically named. Up into the interior, Duval shows all five Great Lakes, however the boundaries of Lakes Superior and Michigan ("Lac des Puans") are left undetermined.

Most of the American Southeast is shown as a part of the great Spanish territory of "Floride," which extends north into the Carolinas. South Carolina is labeled "Floride Françoise," and "Charles-Fort," the abortive French settlement on Port Royal Sound from the 1560s, is labeled here.

Interestingly, this map seems to have been a rhetorical device intended to promote the idea of a Northwest Passage that runs through the Canadian Arctic and then through a supposed strait into the Pacific Ocean. Duval makes the case clearly by stating that "It is believed that this strait communicates between the Seas of the North and the South". Supporting this notion, the map features the track of a supposed 1665 voyage that headed through the Davis and Hudson's Straits, and over through the "Mer Glaciale," heading towards "Iesso," a mythical land located to the north of Japan. The South Pacific and Australasia are shown to be largely a mystery to the European consciousness, with New Zealand being connected to the mythical "Terre de Quir."

The map is beautifully embellished with two Baroque cartouches including allegorical and native figures, and sailing ships. Each mapsheet is also adorned with side panels of text that explain political and geographical details of the regions featured. This map is the second state of Duval's map of the New World, printed under the privilege of his daughter, who was one of the inheritors of his firm upon his death in 1683. The imprint in the general title is altered to read "Chez Mlle. Du Val, Fille de l' Auteur Sur le Quay de l'Orloge, proche le coin de la rue de Harlay a l'ancien Buis."

Each of the four sheets is separately titled, as follows: [upper left] "Le Nouveau Mexique et La Terre de Jesso"; [lower left] "La Mer de Sud dit autrement Mer Pacifique"; [upper right] "La Mer de Nort ou sont La Nle. France, La Floride [&c.]"; [lower right] "Le Perou, Le Chili, La Magellanique, La Plata, et Le Bresil".

Burden, The Mapping of North America II, 508; McLaughlin, California as an Island, 66; Pastoureau, Les Atlas Francais XVIe-XVIIe siecles, Duval II-F, maps: 10,11,13,14 (State 2); Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America, 414; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, 60.

#6774$14,500.00
 
 
FADEN, William (1750-1836)

The United States of North America with the British & Spanish Territories according to the Treaty of 1784

[London]: Wm. Faden, Feb. 11, 1785. Copper-engraved map, with full original colour, trimmed within platemark top margin, trimmed to platemark bottom margin, neatlines intact, mounted on silk mending a split at center fold, large lateral margins. Sheet size: 20 3/4 x 26 1/2 inches.

The extremely rare fourth issue of one of the most important early maps of the United States

Faden's sequence of maps of the United States represents one of the most important cartographic depictions of the newly independent republic. The present map is the fourth issue of the fourteen total appellations (including the parent plan and thirteen subsequent issues), and is one of the extremely rare first five appellations of this series which almost never appear on the market. The Faden sequence comprises a critical and fascinating series of historical documents regarding the political development of the United States, especially since each issue captures a distinct stage in America's process of transformative change. The present map depicts the United States with its new boundaries as determined at the end of the Revolutionary War, as ratified at the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3rd, 1783. (The Treaty came into effect in April of 1784). The map is beautifully coloured to identify American, British, Spanish territories, and the coasts of Newfoundland, rich in cod then, to which the French were granted fishing rights.

The Treaty of Paris settlement established the new United States from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Unfortunately, the source of the Mississippi had not been determined, though the map provides two possible "Mississippi River by Conjecture" sites. Consequently, no definitive northwestern border could be determined. More relevantly, we note open western borders for every state from Georgia to Pennsylvania, except South Carolina. The boundaries between New York, the Iroquois Nation and Pennsylvania are non-existent, but Vermont, though not yet a ratified state, has been inserted between New York and New Hampshire, the beginning of a settlement of an old quarrel. Maine is part of Massachusetts and divided between the "Main" and "Sagahadok" regions.

The land west of the Appalachians but east of the Mississippi, while theoretically apportioned to the United States, is shown to be in fact in the possession of the various native tribes. British hopes for this region lay very much with them.

By the Treaty of Paris, Spain, who had allied themselves with France, took back possession of Florida from Britain, and the vast Louisiana Territory from France. England and Spain were now the predominant North American powers with the fledgling United States relatively minor.

The composition is completed by an extremely fine title cartouche, which depicts a scene in which slaves prepare barrels, bundles and bales for export. This cartouche appeared on several incarnations of this map, and it points to a couple of interesting aspects of the British perception of America: one, America's continuance of slavery, declarations of rights and freedom notwithstanding, and two, the benefits of commerce to both nations. In fact, trade between the two countries resumed soon after the war, despite French protestations.

Stevens & Tree, "Comparative Cartography," in Tooley, The Mapping of America, 80(d), Philips, Maps, p. 865.

#21420$18,500.00
 
 
FADEN, William (1750-1836)

The United States of North America: with the British Territories and those of Spain, according to the Treaty, of 1784

[London]: Wm. Faden, Feby. 11th, 1793. Copper-engraved map, with full original colour, in excellent condition. Sheet size: 24 1/8 x 31 1/8 inches.

The extremely rare fifth issue of one of the most important early maps of the United States

Faden's sequence of maps of the United States represents one of the most important cartographic depictions of the newly independent republic. The present map is the fifth issue of the fourteen total appellations (including the parent plan and thirteen subsequent issues), and is one of the extremely rare first five appellations of this series which almost never appear on the market. The Faden sequence comprises a critical and fascinating series of historical documents regarding the political development of the United States, especially since each issue captures a distinct stage in America's process of transformative change.

The present map depicts the United States' boundaries as determined by the Treaty of 1784, when in actuality it is referring to the settlement agreed to at the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3rd, 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War. This treaty came into effect in April, 1784. The map is in part based on John Mitchell's A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America (1755) that was used by delegates during the treaty process. While the United States was granted a large territory from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River, and from the northern frontiers of Florida to the Canadian border, this map shows that the settled area of the nation was confined to the former Thirteen Colonies, and the two newly admitted states of Vermont (1791) and Kentucky (1792). Even then, the western boundaries of many of the states, past the Appalachians, are undefined. Although Washington, D.C. was in the process of being laid out, it was not yet built, and is absent from the map. One of the most interesting aspects of the map is its labeling of "Franklinia" or the "New State of Franklin." This refers to an attempt by settlers in the Great Smoky Mountains to secede from North Carolina and to form a new state. From 1785 to 1789, seven of the states of the Union endorsed the plan, but it failed to achieve the required two-thirds support to be admitted as a state at the Constitutional Convention. Various lands in Kentucky and the future Tennessee are shown to be reserved for war veterans from "Virginia" and "North Carolina." Another curious appearance is the name of "Indiana" in what is now West Virginia, but nowhere near the future state of that name. Various areas in the southern Midwest are shown to be owned by private land development companies including the "Wabash" and "Ohio" companies. One such enterprise was headed by "Colonel Simmes [sic]," John Cleves Symmes (1742-1814), an eccentric New Jersey magistrate who later wrote a book which theorized that the interior of the earth was both hollow and inhabitable, and could be entered through the poles.

In the same treaty, Spain received possession of Florida from Britain, and the vast Louisiana Territory from France. In the north, although the treaty was supposed to have settled the boundary with Canada from the Great Plains to the Atlantic, a series of geographic misconceptions left the frontier in a nebulous state. Faden elected to present the extreme British conception of the border in northern Maine, and in the northwest, the border was supposed to run west to the source of the Mississippi, when in reality the source was located well to the south. The map also features "The Twenty Leagues Line" located off of the east coast that marked the exclusive maritime jurisdiction of the United States. The composition is completed by an especially finely engraved and coloured title cartouche which depicts scenes of commerce in the prosperous new nation.

Stevens & Tree, "Comparative Cartography," 80(e), in Tooley, The Mapping of America; ,not in Phillips.

#19769$18,500.00
 
 
HONDIUS, Henricus (1597-1651)

[North & South America] America Noviter Delineata

Amsterdam: Jansson & Hondius, 1633. Copper-engraved map, with original outline colour, centerfold reinforced, in very good condition. Sheet size: 18 x 21 1/8 inches.

The celebrated 1618 Hondius map of the Americas, in the third state

The Henrick Hondius map of the Americas is a modification of the map his father had published in 1606. It derives from a map his brother, Jodocus, published in 1618. It is, essentially, Europe's geographical understanding of North and South America for the first half of the 17th century.

Several major corrections had been made to the 1606 Hondius map. The St. Lawrence Bay and River are much improved, and at the opposite end, Tierra del Fuego has been separated, however nebulously, from the great Terra Incognita, thought (correctly) to exist since ancient times. The rather assertive outgrowth of Virginia in the 1606 map has been modified to reflect more accurately the eastward swelling at North Carolina. Interestingly, Hondius' next map of North America (1636) adopted the increasingly popular notion that California was an island, and it greatly advanced that belief.

The map includes inset maps of the North and South Poles. The nicely drawn ships and sea monsters add to the pleasant aesthetic effect of the map.

Burden, The Mapping of North America I, 192; Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Me 37, E 17

#6999$6,000.00
 
 
LOTTER, Tobias Conrad (1717-77)

[North America] America Septentrionalis, Concinnata juxta Observationes Dñn Academae Regalis Scientiarum

Augsburg: T. C. Lotter, [circa 1760]. Copper-engraved map, with full original colour, some light toning, otherwise in very good condition. Sheet size: 20 x 25 1/2 inches.

A very attractive map of North America, depicting the continent during the Seven Years War, by one of the period's leading cartographers

Lotter, like many other eighteenth-century cartographers, based this map on Guillaume De L'Isle's landmark L'Amerique Septentrionale of 1700, however, this map shows important differences from the other derivatives. This map is updated to show the political boundaries as they were considered during the Seven Years War (1756-63), in which Great Britain squared off against France and Spain. Notably, the map supports British claims to all of North America east of the Mississippi, and extends into the Great Lakes and Québec's St. Lawrence Valley. Canada or New France features the fortified bases of Tadousac, Québec, Sorel, Montréal and Fort Frontenac, and continues down to join up with the other Gallic domain of Louisiana, which occupies a narrow band running down the western bank of the Mississippi, and is curiously shown to include Texas. The Spanish domains of New Mexico and Mexico are depicted in great detail, and the map extends to include the entire chain of the Caribbean Islands and the Spanish Main.

Geographically, the map is true to De L'Isle's correct decision to depict California as a peninsula, however, Lotter leaves a little gap at the head of the Sea of Cortés that capriciously creates ambiguity. The river systems, especially the Rio Grande and the Mississippi-Ohio Basin are well defined, and the Great Lakes maintain the advanced form as originally articulated by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli. Florida is more accurately delineated then as it appeared on its antecedent, and the map prominently features the Sargasso Sea, with its infamous forest of seagrass. The Pacific features the tracks of explorers such as Drake and Mendaña. The composition is graced by an elegant title cartouche of a rococo aesthetic, surrounded by a European gentleman and a native warrior along with various attributes of the New World.

Sellers & Van Ee, Maps & Charts of North America & West Indies, 126; Cf. Stevens & Tree, 'Comparative Cartography,' 34, in Tooley, Mapping of America, p.19; Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America, 360

#20039$2,000.00
 
 
[MEAD, Braddock, alias John GREEN (c.1688-1757)]

A Chart of the North and South America including the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with the nearest coasts of Europe, Africa and Asia

London: Thomas Jefferys, 19 Feb 1753. Folio (24 x 16 1/2 inches). Engraved map of the Americas, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on 6 double-page copper engraved sheets, with original outline colour (each sheet 24 x 30 1/4 inches). (Bound without the letterpress colour key slip, 1" square repaired area in lower right corner of the image area of the first map sheet). Contemporary marbled-paper over pasteboard, early manuscript title lettering in ink to backstrip, modern morocco-backed cloth box, green morocco title labels to spine and upper cover.

A very fine copy of this rare and fascinating atlas by an Irish cartographer of great ability: Braddock Mead (who worked under the name John Green) was one of the most gifted mapmakers working in London in the first half of the 18th-century. This atlas (essentially an unassembled six sheet wall map centered on the Americas] accurately documents European exploration in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans up to the mid-eighteenth century.

Rare: only the Dupont copy and two others are listed as having sold at auction in the past thirty years. The six sheets of the atlas cover an area from 185 degrees west to 20 degrees east, and from 60 degrees south to 82 degrees north. The atlas records the tracks of all the latest voyages to the Arctic and the Bering Straits, as well as the Dutch voyages to the South Pacific. Overall, the work offers a clear record of the discoveries that had been made in the area as of 1753, just before an explosion of Western activity in the Pacific and the start of the search, in earnest, for the Northwest Passage. Each of the six double-page sheets includes tables recording distances and positions, the voyages of various explorers, and additional miscellaneous notes (many referring to other maps and mapmakers). Each map is individually titled along upper margin as follows:
Sheet I: 'Chart containing part of the Icy Sea with the adjacent Coast of Asia and America'
Sheet 2: 'Chart comprising Greenland with the Countries and Islands about Baffin's and Hudson's Bays'
Sheet 3: 'Chart containing the Coasts of California, New Albion, and Russian Discoveries to the North; with the Peninsula of Kamchatka, in Asia, opposite thereto; and Islands, dispersed over the Pacific Ocean, to the North of the Line'
Sheet 4: 'Chart of the Atlantic Ocean, with the British, French, & Spanish Settlements in North America, and the West Indies'
Sheet 5: 'Chart containing the greater part of the South Sea to the South of the Line, with the Islands dispersed thro' the same'
Sheet 6: 'Chart of South America, comprehending the West Indies, with the Adjacent Islands, in the Southern Ocean, and the South Sea'

Jefferys, the leading British mapmaker of the mid-eighteenth century, became geographer to the Prince of Wales in 1746 and geographer to the King in 1760. He published a remarkable number of maps and charts, many of the North American continent. "The genius behind Jefferys in his shop was a brilliant man who at this time went by the alias of John Green. He made a great six-sheet map of North and South America (1753), concerning which he said, 'The English charts of America being for the general very inaccurate, I came to a resolution to publish some new ones for the use of British navigators.'

In addition to his extensive cartographic abilities, Green's personal history also stands out from amongst the biographies of other 18th-century British map makers. John Green was born Braddock Mead in Ireland before 1688, married in Dublin in 1715 and around 1717 moved to London. He was imprisoned in 1728 for trying to defraud an Irish heiress. He also worked with Chambers on his Universal Dictionary. After he got out of gaol, he took the name of Green, and subsequently worked for Cave, Astley, and Jefferys. Mead 'had a number of marked characteristics as a cartographer ... One was his ability to collect, to analyze the value of, and to use a wide variety of sources; these he acknowledged scrupulously on the maps he designed and even more fully in accompanying remarks. Another outstanding characteristic was his intelligent compilation and careful evaluation of reports on latitudes and longitudes used in the construction of his maps, which he also entered in tables on the face of the maps ... Mead's contributions to cartography stand out ... At a time when the quality and the ethics of map production were at a low ebb in England, he vigorously urged and practiced the highest standards; in the making of maps and navigational charts he was in advance of his time. For this he deserves due credit." (Cumming).

Crone, "John Green. Notes on a neglected Eighteenth Century Geographer and Cartographer," Imago Mundi, VI (1950) p. 89-91; Crone, "Further Notes on Braddock Mead, alias John Green..." Imago Mundi, VIII (1951) p. 69; Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America, pp.45-47; Sabin, A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, 28538; Phillips, A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress, 1196; Phillips, A List of Maps of America, p.109

#17856$60,000.00
 
 
MERCATOR, Michael (1565/70-1614)

[North & South America] America sive India Nova

Amsterdam: Hondius, [1613]. Copper-engraved map, with full original colour, in very good condition. Sheet size: 17 1/4 x 20 7/8 inches.

A superb example of one of the most celebrated maps of the Americas

Officially made by Gerard's grandson Michael to help complete the Atlas begun by Gerard in 1584, the map is based on the America portion of Rumold Mercator's world map of 1587. Michael Mercator's most significant contribution is the outstanding beauty of the map. Few previous maps, Mercator's included, have the pure visual appeal of this map with its symmetrical configuration of circular insets and Mannerist flow of vines, flowers and leaves.

Geographically, the map sums up 16th-century knowledge, theories and suppositions regarding the New World. A great deal of knowledge had been accumulated in the century since Columbus unknowingly found the Caribbean Islands. Naturally, most of this new knowledge was coastal, and configurations of any large areas were greatly hampered by the lack of a sound means of determining longitude. Nevertheless, the collective accomplishment of explorers and mapmakers represented in this map is astounding, showing in a generally correct way the vast extent of the "New World." This huge geographical revelation was a shock to basic assumptions of Western civilization comparable to the discovery that the earth was not the center of the universe.

Burden, The Mapping of North America I, 87; Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Me 22; Goss, The Mapping of North America, 19.

#5858$8,500.00
 
 
MOLL, Herman (1654-1732)

A New Map of the North Parts of America claimed by France

London: printed for H. Moll, 1720. Engraved map (sheet size: 25 1/2 x 41 1/8 inches.), hand-colored in outline, with small irregularly-shaped engraved onlay titled "Advertisement" with 14 lines of text mounted to an area to the west of Florida and the Bahamas. In good condition apart from some marginal browning and spotting, occasional small marginal tears.

A previously unrecorded first state of this important map, printed before the addition of the "Advertisement" to the plate.

The outline colouring of the map has been specially applied to reflect the political realities in North America at the time. The unique feature of the present map is that the very important "Advertisement" or key which explains this colouring is only present here as a pasted-on slip. On all other recorded copies of this map this text is an integral part of the printed map. The "Advertisement" reads, in part: "All within the Blew Colour of this Map, shews what is Claim'd by France under the Names of Louisiana, Mississipi &c. according to a French Map published at Paris with the French King's Privelege. The Yellow Colour what they allow ye English. The Red, Spain. The English Claim the Property of Carolina … Hence any body ma[y] see, how much they would Incroach &c.".

The lengthy engraved text in the panel beneath the title refers Moll's cartographic sources "A Great Part of this Map is taken from the original Draughts of Mr. [Nathaniel] Blackmore, ... Mr. [Richard] Berisford ... , Capt. [Thomas] Nairn and others". Moll goes on acknowledge that "the South West Part of Louisiana is done" after Guillaume Delisle's map of 1718 and that he has incorporated "the Division or Bounds according to that Map". The text also touches on the controversy over the various claims to Louisiana Territory and the English claim to Carolina.

"Conflict over control of the Ohio Territory and the Mississippi Valley was reflected in a cartographic war between England and France. In 1718, French mapmaker Guillaume Delisle published Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi. For the British, the disturbing feature of Delisle's map was that he significantly reduced the western boundaries of the British colonies along the east coast, thereby adding territory claimed by England to French Louisiana. Two years later, Herman Moll published A New Map of the North parts of America claimed by France, directly challenging Delisle's boundary lines." (Degrees of Latitude p.123).

Cf. Cumming British Maps of Colonial America pp.10-12; cf. Cumming The Southeast in Early Maps pp.21-24; cf. Degrees of Latitude 21 ("Only one state of the map is known"); Leighly California as an Island 180; McLaughlin The Mapping of California as an Island 197; Phillips A List of Maps of America p.570; cf. Reinhartz The Cartographer and the Literati-Herman Moll and His Intellectual Circle pp.18-36.

#20627$15,000.00
 
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