Rare c.17th superbly embellish Dutch map, with full original period hand colouring of Nicholas Visscher’s highly influential double hemisphere map of the World, first published in 1658.
As noted by Rodney Shirley:
. . . Visscher’s new woldmap in two hemispheres can be regarded as the master forerunner of a number of highly decorative Dutch world maps produced throughout the remainder of the century. Essentially based upon Blaeu’s [wall map of the World] of 1648 . . . the distinct attractiveness of many of the later seventeenth century Dutch world maps can be found in their border decorations . . . [in Visscher’s map], artist Nicolaes Berchem has introduced dramatic classical scenes representing the rape of Perephone, Zeus being carried across the heavens in an eagle-drawn chariot, Poseidon commanding his entourage, and Demeter receiving the fruits of the Earth.
In North America, California is shown as an island and its northern coast has been flattened out and named Nova Albion; still further north a small piece of land or an island Anian appears adjacent to a strait leading within striking distance of the west shores of Hudson’s Bay. In China, stippling is used for the first time on a map to denote a desert; this is the extensive Xamo Desertum (xamo in Chinese meaning desert) just west of the Great Wall of China. The desert symbol was copied from M. Martini’s Novus Atlas Sinensis published in 1655.
Visscher’s artist has embellished the map with dramatic classical scenes representing the rape of Persephone, Zeus being carried across the heavens in an eagle-drawn chariot, Poseidon commanding the entourage, and Demeter receiving the fruits of the Earth. At the top and bottom are samller spheres with projections based on the north and south poles; on the latter only the tip of South America can be seen.
Visscher’s map also includes a set of smaller polar hemispheric projections at the top and bottom of the map. Visscher’s world map would become the proto-type for not only a generation of large format Dutch World maps, it also inspired a series of reduced sized biblical world maps by Stoopendahl and others.
Visscher, N. Novus Atlas… Amsterdam
