Dec 17, 2019 - Sale 2527

Sale 2527 - Lot 214

Price Realized: $ 25,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
WALDSEEMÜLLER, MARTIN. Tabula Terre Nove. Double-page woodcut map of the Atlantic Ocean. 17 3/4x22 3/4 inches sheet size, wide margins; nice patina with lighter staining at centerfold, small hole at right margin. Strasbourg, 1513

Additional Details

The "Admiral's Map" from Martin Waldseemüller's 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geographiae: a map that "bears the distinction of being the first truly obtainable printed map to illustrate the Americas" (Burden). Nearly twenty place names appear on the North American coastline, primarily derived from unrecorded Spanish and Portuguese manuscript sources. There is a sense of the Florida peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico as the landmass extends continuously to the southern continent. Cuba and Hispaniola are prominent and labeled Isabella and Spagnolla for the queen of Spain. Puerto Rico (Borigeum) and Jamaica (Jamaiqua) are interspersed among other Caribbean islands. South America is a massive continent with minimal coastal information and the interior labeled "Terra Incognita"; Western Africa, Iberia, part of England, and the mythical island of Hy-Brasil appear at the east side of the Atlantic. Burden 3; Schwartz & Ehrenberg page 34.