Catalog Archive
Auction 129, Lot 76

"America Aurea Pars Altera Mundi", Valck, Gerard and Leonard

Subject: Western Hemisphere

Period: 1708 (circa)

Publication:

Color: Hand Color

Size:
23.5 x 19.3 inches
59.7 x 49 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

This ornamental map of the Americas depicts California as an island with a northern coastline indented by two bays on the second Sanson model. California is separated from the mainland by the island-dotted Mare Rubrum. A faint coastline of Terra Esonis stretches northwestward off the map. The interior is fully engraved with mountains, forests, place names and Indian tribes. The Great Lakes are formed with an enlarged Lake Michigan (Lac Illinois), and the Mississippi is fairly accurately aligned. The large title cartouche features an Amazon queen in a feather headdress, surrounded by native animals and sugar cane, receiving a kneeling subject who presents her with gold. The cartography of the map is very close to Allard's map of c. 1696 and the cartouche is nearly identical.

References: McLaughlin #176; Tooley (Amer) p.128, #68, plt. 53; Wagner (NW) #496.

Condition: B+

Stunning original color with strong impression with a couple spots in the Arctic. There is a bit of printer's ink residue in the plate with the wipe marks still evident. Archival tape repair on bottom fold separation.

Estimate: $2,000 - $2,400

Unsold

Closed on 9/23/2009

Archived