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A handsome separately issued map centered on America and showing the routes of Magellan and the trade route from Europe to Southeast Asia, via Mexico and the west coast of North America.
De Leth's map is based largely partly Nicolas de Fer's extremely rare 1713 wall map. De Leth follows French models and the English American colonies are confined to the Atlantic coast of North America. The Mississippi flows into the Gulf on Mexico on the Texas coast. The Great Lakes are well formed and California is shown as an island. In the Pacific the mythical "Terre de Quir" appears joined to the Australian coastline.
The treatment of Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia are also noteworthy. The map shows a continuous southern coastline of Australia running from Terre d'Edels and Terre de Leuwin, regions discover by the Dutch in early 17th Century, to the west coast of New Zealand, suggesting one continuous land mass extending nearly 11 degrees, with "Terre d'Antoine Diemens" sandwiched between cherubs holding aloft a banner describing "Nova Maris Pacifica Tabula . . . " The nearly parallel northern coastline of Australia also extends nearly 11 degrees, trailing off into a fantasy east coast north of the New Zealand Coastline.
The beautifully engraved vignettes include a spectacular view of Dutch trading port at the Cape of Good Hope, set within and elaborate border decorated with monkeys and wild cats, and crowned with plan of the fort. A plan of Mexico City is surrounded by scenes of native life and the Spanish Conquest of the native Aztecs, as well as images of the TEmple of the sun and an underground mining operation. Other insets includes plans of Straits of Magellan; Vera Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Bello, Straits of Gibraltar; Isthmus of Panama.
Andries de Leth, and his son Hendrik, took over the business of Nicholas Visscher and shortly thereafter produced this magnificent, two-sheet map. The map was not published in any of de Leth's atlases and that accounts for its rarity. As a large separately issued map, subject to the fate of any document unprotected by a binding, it is rarely found in excellent condition. This is the third state, with the inset city plans replacing a vignette of Niagara Falls and the publisher's imprint below the title.
This is a magnificent and highly engaging map by one of the last prominent mapmakers from the golden age of Dutch cartography.
