Beschreibung:

MERCATOR, MICHAEL (ca. 1567-1600). America sive India Nova . [Amsterdam, 1613 or later]. Hand-colored engraved map of the Western Hemisphere, single sheet, 451 x 548 mm., the map showing the Americas with the southern continent, New Guinea, two North Polar islands, and the tip of Greenland, the hemisphere surrounded by roundels in the four corners, three containing inset maps of the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, and Hispaniola, the fourth containing the title, arabesque decoration filling the remaining border. Colored by a contemporary hand. (Unobtrusive fold separation, partly repaired, tiny loss to southern landmass from adhesion, some slight discoloration, a few very small light spots.) Matted and framed. The only known printed map by Gerard Mercator's grandson Michael, engraved for the Atlantis pars altera (Duisburg 1595), the third part of Gerard Mercator's Atlas , published after the elder Mercator's death in 1594 by his son Rumold. The map, which was reprinted without changes in nearly 20 later editions of the Mercator--Hondius atlas, is based on Rumold Mercator's world map of 1587 (see preceding lot), with the addition of minor supplementary detail. "A few of the most famous theories are still present: a large inland lake in Canada, two of the four islands of the North Pole, a bulge to the west coast of South America and the large southern continent. It does not show any knowledge of the English in Virginia, which is possibly a reflection of their failure by then"--Burden 87; Koeman Me 22, no. 78.