PBA Galleries

Copper-engraved map, hand-colored in outline & wash, 2 colored decorative cartouches. 36.5x38 cm (14½x15"). Matted: 55x62 cm (22x24½").

North and South America, with California an island. This is the seventh state, dated 1676 and with the key above the title-cartouche having a decorative cartouche bearing an Indian. It has an additional place name to those added in the 1664 issue: "Partie de la grande Terre Australe" in the lower right, being indication of the great Southern Continent. Burden 311; Leighly 45; McLaughlin 15; Tooley 20; Wagner NW Coast 425; Wheat Transmississippi 64.

Du Val, Nicolas Sanson's nephew, had relied upon his uncle's continent maps for his 1654 atlas, but the following year he created a set of his own, including "this uncommon one of the whole of America. It follow's Sanson's Amerique Septentrionale in many ways, particularly with the five Great Lakes, two of which are left open to the west. One area is different, in the northwest Duval introduces Terre de Iesso, and Destroit d Anien. Both of these are found on Sanson's L'Asie en plusiers cartes, of 1652. The land of Jesso is a result of the confusion of Maerten Gerritsz Vries when sailing in the waters north of Japan. It was in fact the island Hokkaido. An insular California is devoid of placenames" - Burden.