Subject: Eastern Canada and Greenland
Period: 1666 (circa)
Publication: De Zee-Atlas, Ofte Water-Woereld...
Color: Hand Color
Size:
21.4 x 17.5 inches
54.4 x 44.5 cm
Fascinating and uncommon sea chart covering the approaches to Hudson Bay and the fabled Northwest Passage. Johannes van Loon issued an identical map this same year; no one knows whose was first, although it is considered that Goos' map is derived from van Loon. The cartography of this chart is based on various sources, including Hondius' map of North America and Jansson's map of the North Pole, and Greenland is shown with the three-island configuration that began with Sanson. Hudsons Bay is named as a tiny, little cove between James Bay and a large, fictitious bay called the Great Bay. The map is decorated with rhumb lines, ships, and a compass rose as well as a decorative title and distance scale cartouches.
Pieter Goos was one of Amsterdam's most successful publishers of nautical charts, with an impressive international clientele of shipowners, officials, and navigators. Only the publishing houses of Blaeu and Van Keulen shared a comparable esteem. His maritime atlas of the world was one of the most complete sea atlases published prior to the appearance of Van Keulen's Zeefakkel in the 1680’s.
References: Burden #386; Kershaw #197; Putnam pp. 99-100.
Condition: B
A nice impression on a watermarked sheet with attractive color. There are a number of archivally repaired separations along the centerfold, with a minor amount of image replaced in facsimile. There is light soiling and some short edge tears, one of which enters into the neatline at bottom.