Catalog Archive
Auction 150, Lot 60

"America", Claesz, Cornelis

Subject: Western Hemisphere - America

Period: 1600 (circa)

Publication: Thresor de Chartes

Color: Black & White

Size:
4.9 x 3.3 inches
12.4 x 8.4 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

This is a French edition of this charming miniature map that was based on the 1587 folio map by Abraham Ortelius. A notation in North America notes its discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Mythical locations such as Quivira, , Granada, and Marata are named in North America. The area north of Quivira is called Anian. While the whole of the present-day United States is misshapen, the Mid-Atlantic region, labeled Virginia, is especially protuberant. A massive continent named Terra Australis Incognita and a fragment of Nova Guinea appear with incomplete coastlines. This map has a convoluted publishing history and it has been attributed to both Cornelis Claesz and Petrus Bertius. It made its appearance in a number of works starting with Claesz' work criticizing the Spanish for their treatment of the Indians. It then appeared in Bertius' revision of Langenes' pocket atlas. Claesz was the publisher for both these works. An alternate title, Le Nouveau Monde, appears above the top border.

References: Burden #92; Van der Krogt (Vol. IIIB) 9000:341.

Condition: A

Faint show-through of text on verso and minor soiling confined to the blank margins.

Estimate: $400 - $500

Unsold

Closed on 9/17/2014

Archived