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Description

Unrecorded early map of the Northern part of America, including Hudson Bay, Davis Straits, Button Bay and the west coast of Greenland. While at first blush, the map appears similar to contemporary maps by Goos and Van Loon (1666) and De Wit (1675) , the map is in fact quite different. The most notable difference is the spelling of New South Walles and New North Walles, which are correctly spelled on the former 3 maps. While it is impossible to determine whether the map pre-dates the 1666 maps, it is noteworthy that this is the simplest and least adorned of the sequence of maps, giving credence to the prospect that it my enjoy primacy.

The map covers the region bounded by Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay, Greenland and the Northern part of Newfoundland. Includes several notes concerning the explorations of Button, Hudson and Thomas Jacobus. Includes several tentative coastlines and several hopeful passages to the Pacific Ocean.

The Jacobsz/Lootsman family began with father Anthonie Jacobsz, who along with Blaeu and Colom were the most famous sea chart makers in Holland in the first part of the 17th Century. After Anthonie's death in 1643, his sons Caspar (born 1635) and Jacob continued the business after a period where their mother kept the business going until the sons came of age. Once the sons took over, they quickly changed their names to Lootsman, to avoid confusion with the father. Certainly by 1666, Caspar would have been old enough to have already engraved this map, there fore it is possible that this map actually pre-dates the work of Van Loon and Goos. While most of the body of work produced by the Lootsman bothers came in the 1670s, they are credited with work in the 1660s as well.

Regardless of the issue of primacy of the map sequence, the map represents an extraordinary find, being one of the few maps attributed solely to Caspar Lootsman and apparently an unrecorded example, which was not noted by Philip Burden in either of his books. Lootsman's charts are very rare on the market.

Condition Description
Upper neatline reinstated in facsimile.