Insulae Americanae in Oceano Septentrionali, cum terris adjacentibus [Rare Blaeu West Indische Pascaert Wall Map Section]

On 11 February 1634 Willem Blaeu announced the publication of a world atlas in four languages. He was able to complete only the German edition in that year. In order to get it ready in time Blaeu used shortcuts in several instances as happened with this map of Central America.
Blaeu used the north western part of the copperplate of his West-Indische Paskaert , covering it on three sides (only on the left is a plate mark visible). Although cleverly disguising the fact by choosing the same left margin, providing a plate mark on one side only, and the Equator as his lower margin, he decapitates a native Indian depiction and slices the cartouche at the top. The title was printed in letterpress on paper and pasted into the remaining half of the cartouche.

This state of the map was first described by Wieder in 1927, who located an example of the atlas which has since disappeared.
A German text with the signature 'C', and beginning with Süder Virginia, Florida, Hunduras . . . is printed on the back.
Wieder described than a by him discovered exemplar of the /Willem Blaeu antique map/ 1634 German text edition of the "Novus Atlas", of which it's present location is unclear.

Manhattan and other parts of the Northeast had recently been settled when the chart appeared, but the Dutch were also casting acquisitive eyes on the Caribbean and South America. As Stokes (p. 82) observed, Blaeu sought “to make improvements in the delineation of the New Netherland coast” in the second Pascaerte. For the first time in a printed map, Manhattan takes on a triangular shape that would be followed by maps until the middle of the 16th century.
Also the place name, Hellgate, appears on it for the first time on a printed map.
The mapping of Long Island, Cape Cod, and Boston Harbor and Bay have all been improved.

The map is very rare; Philip Burden notes that the existence of this map was not re-discovered until 1927 by Wieder. Tony Campbell located a second example in 1984. By the time of Burden's writing, he noted that only one example is located in U.S. (Osher collection, University of Southern Maine), 3 copies are found in an Atlas of a total of 7 examples who were known in public collections.

In 2010 an example was sold in the Benevento sale at Sotheby's for 11,875 GBP / 18,275 US$

References :Burden, Mapping of North America 233: state 1a
Van der Krogt 2, 9600:2A
Arkway Catalogue 62, #2
Schilder Monumenta, IV, 63.2.
Johannes Keuning and Marijke Donkersloot-de Vrij, Willem Janszoon Blaeu: A Biography and History of his Work as a Cartographer and Publisher (Amsterdam, 1973), p.74.
Destombes & Gernez, ‘West Indische Paskaert’, p. 12.