Antique Maps Leen Helmink Antique Atlas of America by Johannes de Laet Click here or on the image for a high resolution photo or scan. AUTHOR Johannes de Laet TITLE Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien PUBLISHER Elsevier PLACE ISSUED Leiden FIRST EDITION 1630 THIS EDITION 1630 SIZE Folio (12 1/4 x 7 3/4 in.; 310 x 195mm) AREA SHOWN Americas TOTAL MAPS 14 TECHNIQUE Copper engravings BINDING Contemporary vellum TEXT Dutch text COLOURING Uncolored CONDITION This antique atlas is in pristine condition DESCRIPTION RARE ENLARGED SECOND EDITION of this important atlas of the Americas. Mint condition. Half-title, engraved title, 14 folding maps, many text illustrations; light damp-stain in fore-edges of first few leaves. Contemporary vellum; minor soiling. Second, expanded edition of one of the most important of seventeenth century New World voyages collections, compiled by a director of the Dutch West India Company, Johannes de Laet (1581-1649). As a director of the Dutch West India Company, Laet was in a good position to have access to information from the great wave of Dutch seafaring in the early part of the seventeenth century. Each of the eighteen constituent books is turned over to the consideration of a different region of the New World. The first book treats the West Indies, the second Canada, the third Virginia, the fourth Florida, and the fifth Mexico. The sixth book devotes extensive space to discoveries in California, the Gulf of California, and New Mexico. The remaining books describe the northern coast of South America, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. The fourteen maps are engraved by the famous Hessel Gerritsz, official chartmaker of the Dutch East India Company. These maps are the very best of the Americas to appear up to this time of publication (only ten appeared in the first edition); they illustrate the Westem Hemisphere, the Caribbean, New France, New England and Virginia, Florida, Mexico and Central America. Terra Firma (northwestern South America), Peru, Chile, far South America, Paraguay and the Rio de la Plata basin, Brazil, Guiana, and Venezuela. The text illustrations are chiefly of biological or botanical specimens, some quite fanciful. Johannes de Laet continued revising this work until his death in 1649, incorporating recent developments in exploration and observation. Most of the maps are prototypes, the first of their kind, that saw extensive later use in numerous seventeenth-century atlases. REFERENCES Borba de Moraes 1:384; European Americana 630/88; JCB(3)II:229; Sabin 38555; Willems 327 Burden, The Mapping of North America 229-231; GUARANTEE We do not sell reproductions. We guarantee that this is a genuine and original antique atlas that was published on or near the given date. A certificate of authentication is provided on request. Price € 27500 Antique Maps Leen Helmink