Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - August - 2008 Issue
Maps from the Age of Exploration from the Arader Galleries
Waldseemuller's 1513 American map; followed by Munster's of 1540.
Item 69 is a first edition (1597) of Descriptionis Ptolemaicae augmentum, sive Occidentis Notitia... by Cornelius Wyfliet. This was the first atlas devoted entirely to the Americas. It has eight maps of North America, including the first to use the name "Canada," the first map of central Canada, the first map devoted to California (correctly showing it as a peninsula rather than an island), and the second to name "Virginia." Ten maps are devoted to South America, while one depicts Antarctica. $450,000.
Item 72 is Samuel de Champlain's final map of New France (today's eastern Canada, New England, and part of the American Midwest). It is his Carte de la nouvelle France from his voyages to New France, published in 1632. The coastal areas are quite accurate for the time, and Champlain did manage to include four of the five Great Lakes, though their depiction and placement is far less true. An illustration of a church is believe to be a recognition of a Dutch presence and thereby the first depiction of New York on a printed map. However, no such recognition is given to the British in New England, perhaps a consequence of the long rivalry between that nation and France. Champlain's map shows an open passage to the north of the continent, a clear depiction of a Northwest Passage explorers would spend centuries attempting to find. $290,000.
By 1650, Nicolas Sanson would show all five Great Lakes in his map Amerique Septentrionale, originally from the atlas Les Cartes Generales... However, by this time, mapmakers had also severed California from the mainland, showing it as an island. Sanson includes Santa Fe as the capital of New Mexico and adds the words "Apache" and "Navajo" to the map. Item 77. $18,000.
We move to the end of the era of exploration with item 96, a complete set of Captain James Cook's three voyages. Cook would chart much of Australia and New Zeeland, put an end to the myth of a massive southern continent, become the first European to visit Hawaii (where he ultimately was killed), and unsuccessfully attempt to find a Northwest Passage. Offered is the complete nine-volume set in first editions, including the atlas. $67,500.
You may reach the Arader Galleries at 212-628-3668.
