Sold Antiques

M-11087: (Image: 15x19 ½’’)  “Carte de L’AMERIQVE...” Petrus Bertius. Paris: Melchior Tavernier, c. 1627.  Very fine original hand-colored map with later enhancement. Ref: Burden #218. Rare first state – without Neuf Amsterdam and other colonial place names in the Northeast and West.

“This rare map is one of a set of the four known continents that Melchior Tavenier had engraved, with or without Petrus Bertius’ permission is unclear” (Burden). The map bears the name P. Bertius & while similar to his map of 1624, this map has a completed western coast of North America & different decorations in the sea. Both are based on Jodocus Hondius’ map of 1618, with the completion of the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego.

Topographical features are shown (many purely speculative, or mythical), & many known towns, cities, missions, & Indian villages are located. The Great Lakes are shown as one Great Lake, & contrary to an emerging popular theory of the time, California is shown as a peninsula. The northwest coast is shown oriented westward to Cape Mendocino, & then veering northeast - suggesting a Northwest Passage (also why the Hudson Bay is left open). The insets show both Polar Regions. Sea monsters decorate the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

“Petrus Bertius (1565-1629) was brother-in-law to both Jodocus Hondius and Peter van den Keere with whom he worked in close contact...” (Tooley: The Mapping of America, p. 299).