Subject: South America
Period: 1700 (circa)
Publication:
Color: Hand Color
Size:
34.8 x 22 inches
88.4 x 55.9 cm
This handsome and large map of the continent is decorated with elaborate title and scale of miles cartouches balancing the lower portion of the map. The continent is divided into the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch possessions. The fourteen coastal Capitaineries created by the Portuguese are outlined in Brazil. The course of the Amazon is delineated in a fairly accurate manner, yet it shows the river's source in a fascinating, interlacing maze of waterways. In the north appears a large mythical inland sea, Lac ou Mer de Parime, with the fabled city Manoa el Dorado, or the golden city of the Incas, on its northwestern shore. The Rio Paraguay erroneously begins at a lake named Xarayes in the middle of the continent. The title cartouche features two native men and the heads of two tropical birds, while the distance scale cartouche includes a native resting in a hammock, a pair of female natives, a monkey, and additional tropical birds. Printed on two sheets, joined as issued.
References:
Condition: B+
A dark impression with contemporary color in the map and later color in the cartouches, faint printer's ink residue, minor soiling, and light foxing in the Atlantic Ocean and in the distance scale cartouche. A 1" separation in the joint at bottom has been archivally repaired on verso.