| Summary: | 18th century Copper engraving handcolored with watercolor. Outline color. Relief shown pictorially. Printed in cartouche in lower left corner: "America Aurea Pars Altera Mundi Auctoribus Gerardo et Leonardo Valk. Cum Privilegio Ordinum Hollandiae et West Frisiae." Depicts North and South America. South America is divided into the following regions: Terra Firma, Guiana, Amazonum Regio, Brasilia, Paraguay, Terra Magellanica, Chili and Peru. Mexico is shown as Nova Hispania. The West Indies are also depicted. North America has been divided into Nova Mexico, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nova Francia, Terra Labrador, Groenlandia (Greenland), Nova Anglia (New England), Yslandia (Iceland), Virginia, Pennsylvania and in the far northwest, Terra Esonis. Of note, California is shown as an island. Also visible are parts of western Europe including England, Spain and France as well as part of West Africa, the Canary Islands, the Fortunate Islands and the Azores. Above the title cartouche is a feathered crown. An elaborately costumed woman and slave figure with basket, and native flora and fauna including sugar cane, a parrot, aligator and an armadillo surround the cartouche. Prime meridian: Tenerife. Scale: c.a. 1: 39,000,000. [East 162 degrees--East 7.5 degrees/North 80 degrees--South 57 degrees]. Gerard Valck (ca. 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). 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, "Dictionary of Mapmakers," 634). Leonard Valck worked with his father for a number of years to compile an atlas. Upon his father's death, Leonard continued the business. His work includes "Orbis Terrarum," (produced with his father), "Repub Veneta" (1690) and "Circulis Saxoniae Superioris" (1710) (Tooley, "Dictionary of Mapmakers" 634). Though many different resources provide different dates, this particular map was published between 1690 and 1710. It is a copy of Allard's "Recentissima Novi Orbis, Sive Americae Septentrionalis et Meridionalis…", published ca. 1696. This map uses the same illustrations and cartouche minus the inset of New Zealand that Allard uses in his map. California has the same place names but its outlines and are "far more indented" and its "interior [is] filled with mountains and forests" (Tooley, "California as an Island," 128). Note from researcher regarding the date of map: "while struggling to provide a more precise date of this map in my personal collection I discovered that "F. Louis" is sited near present day Mobile, Alabama. This is Fort Louis which was established by the French in 1702 so the map can't be earlier than that date". Source(s): Moreland, Carl and David Bannister. "Antique Maps: A Collector's Handbook." New York: Longman Group, Ltd., 1983. Tooley, Ronald Vere. "Chapter 3: California as an Island: A Geographic Misconception Illustrated by 100 Examples from 1625 to 1770." In "The Mapping of America." Ed. by Ronald Vere Tooley. London: Holland Press, 1985. 110-134. ---. "Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers." Hertfordshire: Map Collector Publications Limited, 1979. Wagner, Henry R. "The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America to the year 1800 Volume 2." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937.
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