17th Century Antique Map of the World -- California as an Island
Fine example of Hubert Jaillot's final double hemishpere map of the World, published in Amsterdam in 1699.
Shows California as an island.
The unknown southern continent appears, along with a partial New Zealand and Australia. The map also includes the mythical land bridge between Japan and the West Coast of North America, and early Great Lakes projection.
Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (ca. 1632-1712) was one of the most important French cartographers of the seventeenth century. Jaillot traveled to Paris with his brother, Simon, in 1657, hoping to take advantage of Louis XIV's call to the artists and scientists of France to settle and work in Paris. Originally a sculptor, he married the daughter of Nicholas Berey, Jeanne Berey, in 1664, and went into partnership with Nicholas Sanson's sons. Beginning in 1669, he re-engraved and often enlarged many of Sanson's maps, filling in the gap left by the destruction of the Blaeu's printing establishment in 1672.