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Description

Gorgeous example of De Wit's general sea chart of the the Southeastern US, Gulf Coast, Florida and the Caribbean, from his Orbis Maritimus ofte Zee Atlas.

The map is based upon Hessel Gerittsz map of 1631, although it is based more cloosely on Lootsman's chart of 1661. The map was likely engraved by Romein de Hooghe.

A fine example of De Wit's marvelous engraivng style. There is a wealth of navigational information including sandbanks and shoals. The chart is a masterpiece of decorative engraving with illustrations of sailing vessels, a compass rose and two elaborate title cartouches (Latin and Dutch), one showing cannibalism. The map was re-issued by Renard and by Ottens in the early 18th Century.

A gorgeous example of the map, which has become quite scarce on the market in the first edition.

Reference
Burden 468.
Frederick De Wit Biography

De Wit (1629 ca.-1706) was a mapmaker and mapseller who was born in Gouda but who worked and died in Amsterdam. He moved to the city in 1648, where he opened a printing operation under the name of The Three Crabs; later, he changed the name of his shop to The White Chart. From the 1660s onward, he published atlases with a variety of maps; he is best known for these atlases and his Dutch town maps. After Frederik’s death in 1706, his wife Maria ran the shop for four years before selling it. Their son, Franciscus, was a stockfish merchant and had no interest in the map shop. At the auction to liquidate the de Wit stock, most of the plates went to Pieter Mortier, whose firm eventually became Covens & Mortier, one of the biggest cartography houses of the eighteenth century.