The Third Derivative of Smith's Map of Virginia

"Virginia - Erforshet und Beschriben durch Capitain Iohan Schmidt", Merian, Matthaus

John Smith's map was the most important map of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay of the seventeenth century. It was the prototype map of the region and was instrumental in creating interest in the new Virginia colony. The map depicts a number of explorations and observations made by Smith and the Jamestown settlers, with small crosses marking the range of those explorations. The information on the locations of the Indian tribes and villages is very extensive; in fact it is still in use by archaeologists today. The engraving is adorned by a decorative and functional thirty-two point compass rose placed in the Atlantic at lower left, and is a good example of a transitional compass rose. The rhumb lines extend from the compass, but only as far as the coastline so as not to interfere with the more useful depiction of topography and settlements. Eventually, land maps would phase out the use of compass roses. The other decorative elements that fill the map, including Powhatan's Council and a Susquehannock Indian, are based on John White's drawings made during the first attempt to form a colony in Virginia (present-day North Carolina), as published in the first part of Theodore de Bry's Grand Voyages. This third derivative of Smith's map accompanied the 13th part of the Grand Voyages, which was published posthumously by his son-in-law, Mathaus Merian.

Provenance: This example was featured in conjunction with the British Museum's collection of John White watercolors entitled "A New World: England’s First View of America from the British Museum," during the exhibit's travelling exposition at the North Carolina Museum of History from October 2007 to January 2008.

References: Burden #219; Tooley (Amer) p. 163-4 #3, plt 71; Garratt (TMC-9) p. 9; #G39; Reinhartz, pp. 6-7.

Condition: A

A very attractive example on a clean sheet of watermarked paper with a few tiny spots of excess watercolor in the image.