De Groote ende Kleyne Eylanden van West-Indien.

This fine covers all of the West Indies and the Bahamas and shows the coastline of Florida, and Central and South America. The islands, no matter how small, are named in the map.
Scarce map prepared by Hessel Gerritsz (1581-1632), former apprentice of Willem Blaeu, and Blaeu’s predecessor as chief cartographer of the Dutch East India Company. Gerritsz enjoys a very high reputation for his critical approach towards his sources.
Most of Gerritsz’ work exists only in manuscript, and these maps published by de Laet, are among the only printed Gerritsz maps available to the collector and institution today.
West to the top.
Published in first issue of Joannes De Laet's "Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien". First edition in Latin (first edition in Dutch, 1625, expanded and improved in 1630, also in Dutch, with four regional American maps and other material not in the 1625 edition). This work is “one of the most famous contemporary descriptions of the natural history of the New World” (Streeter Sale 37) and one of the early atlases to focus exclusively on America after Wytfliet’s atlas of 1597 and Herrera’s 1601 atlas.

Hessel Gerritsz, map maker for the Dutch VOC, prepared the present map from the information recently derived from the voyage of Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten, which resulted in the discovery of both the Le Maire Strait and Cape Horn. The present map is one of the earliest maps to focus on the region, appearing in De Laet's important compilation on the New World.

Dare to go in Black. All early maps are printed in black and white and many were kept that way for a long time. A black and white map in an early and strong impression is a rarity now-a-days with so many being recently colored up !
Ruscelli. [+]#bw">Read more [+]