| Summary: | 17th century Copper engraving handcolored with watercolor. Outline and some full color. Relief shown pictorially. Printed in banner at top: "Novus Planiglobii Terrestris Per Utrumque Polum Conspectus." Printed in cartouche in center of bottom edge: "Prostat Amstelaedami Penes Gerardum Valck Calcographum in foro vulgo den Dam sub signo Canis Excubantis cum Privilegio." Beneath this imprint, an earlier erased imprint is visible. Depicts the world in two polar projections. The Garden of Eden before the Fall is shown in the lower right edge of map with Adam together with several animals including a unicorn, and an elephant. The lower left section of the map contains an illustration of the Garden of Eden after the Fall showing Adam and Eve in grief, rain falling, and two whales in the ocean spouting water. Cartouche in center of bottom is surrounded by two cherubs and topped with a shield and a royal crown. Also included is an illustration of the sun in top left corner and moon in top right corner with clouds and starry heavens in top center. A small compass rose is in the center between the two polar projections. Several ships appear sailing on the oceans. Of note, California is depicted as an island and the Atlantic Ocean is labeled as "Mar del Nort" in the North Pole projection and "Oceanus Aethiopicus" in the South Pole projection. Australia is labeled as "Hollandia Nova" and New Zealand is included. Antarctica is not depicted. Scale: c.a. 1: 49,000,000. Gerard Valck (c.a. 1651-1726) was a publisher and the engraver of Amsterdam Sur le Dam. He worked with Pieter Schenk, a relative through marriage, as well his own son, Leonard Valck. In 1683, he obtained a few of Joan Blaeu's map copperplates and in 1695, he acquired some of Jansson's map plates (Tooley, 634). In this particular map, according to Shirley, one can see the "erased signature of J. Blaeu" beneath Valck's imprint, proof that Blaeu most likely created this map plate in the "last years" of his life, 1672-3. Some speculate that this rare polar map projection was meant for the Spanish "Atlas Maior" which was never finished. Valck did not make any other changes to Blaeu's original map (Shirley, 477-8; "Novus planiglobii terrestris…"). Shirley speculates that Valck purchased this plate at an auction in 1694 and believes that its publication in 1695 "anticipates [its] inclusion in the Schenk and Valck atlases of the early 1700s" (478). Valck produced a number of works including many separate maps reissued from Jan Jansson's "Atlas Novus" produced with Schenk (1683-1694), "Globes" (1700-1715), "Atlas Anglois" (1715), "Atlas" with Schenk (1702), "Caspian Sea" (1721), Cellarius' "Harmonia Macrocosmica" (1720), and "Large Maps of the World and 4 Continents" (1680) (Moreland and Bannister, 120; Tooley 634). Source(s): Moreland, Carl and David Bannister. "Antique Maps: A Collector's Handbook." New York: Longman Group, Ltd., 1983. "Novus planiglobii terrestris per utrumque polum conspectus." National Library of Australia. 2008. National Library of Australia Digital Collections: Maps. Shirley, Rodney W. "The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps 1472-1700. Riverside, CT: Early World Press Ltd., 2001. Tooley, Ronald Vere. "Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers." Hertfordshire: Map Collector Publications Limited, 1979.
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