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Description

Rare 1790 Janvier/Lattre map of America, which contains not only the mythical Sea of the West, but also an equally mythical reference to a 1782 Voyage of Cook.

The present map is one of the most fascinating (and lazy) examples of the use of a recycled map which we have encountered in a number of years. First issued by Janvier circa 1760, the map would appear to be completely unchanged from the original edition, yet Lattre has added in a claim that the map has been updated to reflect 1782 "voyage du Cook," completely ignoring the fact that Captain James Cook died in 1779, during this third voyage.

As there is no sign of Hawaii in the map and the Northwest Coast of America shows no signs of modification (most notably, the retention of the massive Sea of the West), it is quite difficult to imagine how this map survived the editorial process.

The map includes a massive Sea of the West, Mississippi & tributaries, colonies, excellent detail in southwest along Rio Grande, and strangely misspelled L.Winnepeg with rivers connecting it to Hudson Bay & the Mississippi. Large decorative cartouche. Davis land, discovered in 1687, is shown, along with Quiros discoveries in 1605. The entry to the Sea of the West discovered by Juan De Fuca in 1591 and by Martin D'Aguilar in 1603, are noted quite prominently and of course mythically. No mention of Fou-Sang, the mythical early Chinese contact with the NW Coast of America.

With all of its errors, this is truly a fantastic item for a collector of Cook maps or the Sea of the West.

Jean Lattré Biography

Jean Lattré (fl. 1743-1793) was a Parisian bookseller and engraver who published many maps, plans, globes, and atlases. He worked closely with other important French cartographers, including Janvier, Bonne, and Delamarche, as well as other European mapmakers, such as William Faden, Santini, and Zannoni. Lattré is also interesting due to his propensity to bring suits against those who copied his work; plagiarism was common practice in eighteenth-century cartography and mapmakers struggled to maintain proprietary maps and information.