Acquired From: Leen Helmink
Colouring: Coloured
Condition: Very Good
Date Acquired: Nov 2025
Dealers ID No.: 10234 (Barry Ruderman)
Description: This finely engraved hemispheric map of the Americas was engraved by Michael Mercator, grandson of Gerard Mercator, and is the only map known to have been engraved by him, making it a work of particular importance within the Mercator corpus. The map is based on the 1587 world map of Rumold Mercator, Gerard Mercators son and principal collaborator, whose work in turn derived from Gerard Mercators seminal 1569 world projection. The plate was prepared for the first posthumous edition of Mercators Atlas (1595) and represents a rare independent contribution by the third generation of the Mercator family.nNorth and South America are shown above a vast conjectural Southern Continent, with the Pacific Ocean extending westward to a rounded New Guinea at the edge of the hemisphere. The Arctic displays three of the four polar islands traditionally associated with Mercators north polar geography. Four inset panels occupy the corners: the Gulf of Mexico (upper left), Cuba (upper right), Hispaniola (lower left), and a decorative title cartouche (lower right). Although Gerard Mercator is named in the title, Michael Mercator is identified as the engraver, with Duisburg given as the place of execution.nAlthough engraved in 1595, the map reflects geographic knowledge current before the late 1580s, with no reference to English activity in Virginia or to the voyages of Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish, which improved European knowledge of the Pacific coast of the Americas and confirmed the feasibility of circumnavigation via the Strait of Magellan. The geography thus preserves an earlier Mercatorian worldview and serves as a tribute to Gerard Mercators unfinished atlas project.
Engraver: Michael Mercator
First published: Atlas sive Cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica Mundi et fabricati figura, Duisburg: Rumold Mercator, 1595
Image Size (cm): 46.5×36.5
Mapmaker: Mercator, Michael (cax. 15671600.)
Primary Category: Americas
Rarity: R1 Extremely rare – occasionally seen on the market
Sheet size (cm): 57.5×48
Technique: Copper Engraving
This state: 1613 (French text), Amsterdam: Jodocus Hondius,
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