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The item illustrated and described below is sold, but we have another example in stock. To view the example which is currently being offered for sale, click the "View Details" button below.
Description

Old color example of Frederick De Wit's striking double hemisphere map of the World, with significantly new cartographic detail in Southeast Asia and to the north of New Zealand.

The map shows the Briggs model of California as an island and the Straits of Anian.

The brilliant scenes in the corners combine images of the four seasons, the elements and the signs of the zodiac in a well-balanced and natural way. According to Shirley, De Wit's map is one of the most attractive of its time.

This is the second state of the map, with decorative borders around the map and illustrations between the cusps. In about 1680, the map was revised in the western hemisphere, with the following changes:

  • Briggs model California as an island (flat top) changed to Sanson model (two fingers at the top)
  • NW Coastline removed in state 3
  • Nova Guinea appears in the western hemisphere in state 3
  • Quiri Regio appears in the western hemisphere in state 3 \
  • One large Great Lake has been replaced with a group of open ended Great Lakes.
  • Anian and the Straits of Anian have been removed
  • Far more detail in the interior of North & South America

Condition Description
Old color, recently refreshed. Old miscreasing has been flattened.
Reference
Shirley 451.
Frederick De Wit Biography

De Wit (1629 ca.-1706) was a mapmaker and mapseller who was born in Gouda but who worked and died in Amsterdam. He moved to the city in 1648, where he opened a printing operation under the name of The Three Crabs; later, he changed the name of his shop to The White Chart. From the 1660s onward, he published atlases with a variety of maps; he is best known for these atlases and his Dutch town maps. After Frederik’s death in 1706, his wife Maria ran the shop for four years before selling it. Their son, Franciscus, was a stockfish merchant and had no interest in the map shop. At the auction to liquidate the de Wit stock, most of the plates went to Pieter Mortier, whose firm eventually became Covens & Mortier, one of the biggest cartography houses of the eighteenth century.