Lot 36: GOOS, Pieter (1616-1675). L’Atlas de la Mer ou Monde aquaticque...

GOOS, Pieter (1616-1675). L’Atlas de la Mer ou Monde aquaticque représentant toutes les costes maritimes. Amsterdam: Pieter Goos, 1670.

A sumptuous copy, beautifully hand-coloured and heightened with gold by a contemporary artist. Hendrik Doncker was the originator of this form of sea-atlas and most of Goos’s charts were copied from him. Koeman observes (IV, p.193) that the publisher hardly varied the content of the many editions which appeared between 1666 and 1683. Our copy may be one of those sold by the Amsterdam bookbinder Albertus Magnus, following Goos’s death in 1675, as Koeman notes that ‘These copies are famous for their outstanding colour’. In fact, the very effective use of colouring led Koeman to conjecture that Goos’s sea-atlas was ‘more intended for the book-lover than for the seaman’. There are some very striking maps, including an interesting depiction of Hudson's Bay just prior to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company (Burden I, 386). Also included are 2 maps of the New Netherlands. One is of the eastern seaboard from Boston Harbor to Cape Hatteras (Burden I, 387). The other, 'Paskaerte van de Zuyd en Noordt Revier in Nieu Nederlandt,' of the Dutch and Swedish colonies, 'is the rarest of the Goos charts of North America' (Burden I, 388), and was most probably issued separately, and only added to the atlas as a supplementary chart. Koeman IV, Goos 2C; NMM III(1), 96; Shirley BL M.GOOS-2f.

Tall folio (520 x 320mm). Engraved title and 40 plates, all with contemporary hand-colouring and heightened with gold, one folding, the rest double-page, mounted on guards (title short at fore-edge and presumably supplied, also a little soiled and frayed at margins). Contemporary vellum, central lozenge in blind frame with small acorn at angles, uncut (light scratch marks, spine a little worn at foot, corners bumped).