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Description

A Fine Old Color Example of the First State of De Wit's North Polar Map

Old color example of Jan Jansson's map of the North Polar regions, newly revised by Frederick De Wit, circa 1676.

The map shows Baffin's Bay, Button's Bay and James Bay, Greenland, Iceland, Spitsberg (with incomplete coastline), Lappland, Russian and European Asia, etc.

Numerous compass roses, sailing ships, etc. Two decorative cartouches.

This is the first De Wit edition of the map, which includes his name in the title cartouche (Fredericum de Wit).  A later edition shortens his name to F. De Wit.

Condition Description
Old color.
Reference
Kershaw, K.A. #103; Burden, P.D. #246.
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.