This copper engraving is from a remarkable series of publications, illustrating voyages of discovery and travels of exploration to various parts of the world. The project was begun by Theodore de Bry of Frankfurt, in 1590 and was to continue for another 54 years. They became known collectively as the Grands Voyages (to America and the West Indies) and the Petits Voyages (to the Orient and the East Indies). De Bry died after the first six parts of the Grands Voyages were completed. The project was completed initially by his widow and two sons, Johann Theodore de Bry and Johann Israel de Bry, then by Johann Theodore's son-in-law, Matthaus Merian, in 1624.

This striking engraving was originally published as Plate XXII in Part IV of de Bry's Grands Voyages. It depicts the brutal scene of Vasco Nunez de Balboa's massacring 40 Cueva peoples for what he perceived to be their deviant sexuality. Balboa, who had become Governor of Veragua (the Spanish colonial territory in Central America) in 1513, led an expedition from Santa Maria on the northern coast of Panama to the South Sea (the Pacific Ocean) in search of gold. On September 25, 1513, Balboa viewed the Pacific for the first time from the summit of a mountain, and is credited with being the first European to sight the ocean. The plate was republished in Johann Ludwig Gottfried's Newe Welt und Americanische Historien, a collection of voyages. Also known as Historia Antipodum, Gottfried's work is an abridgement of de Bry's voyages to America that incorporates much new material. Matthaus Merian, de Bry's son-in-law and publisher for Historia Antipodum, was granted access to de Bry's copper-engraved plates. On a sheet of German text measuring 9.3 x 13.6".

References: Van Groesen (De Bry's America) p. 221.

Condition: A

A nice impression with minor dampstaining outside engraved image.