Old Decorative Map of the West African Coast & St. Thomae Island, c.1600

Title: "L'Afrique, ou Lybie ulterieure ou sont le Saara, ou Desert, le pays des negres, la Guinee, et les Pays circonv. Tirée en partie de Sanut, et de l'Arabe de Nubie; en partie de diverses Cartes veües jusques a present". Handsome map of Western Africa filled with information, much of it spurious, in the Sahara Desert, the Niger River and the coast of Guinea. Of particular interest are several incomplete rivers in the desert regions that appear and then disappear. The map is beautifully engraved with a title cartouche fashioned in the form of an oriental carpet. The map shows a fantastic level of detail near the coastlines, which extends into legend and Ptolemaic myth in the interior of the continent. Detail is particularly extensive in Guinea and the Gold and Ivory Coasts. The Niger River is traced to its Malian lakes. The Mediterranean is barely visible in the northern part of the map. This map incorporates the discoveries made by Samuel Blommaert, who was director of the Dutch West Indies Company, in addition to traveling extensively to Africa and settling the oldest land deed...

Antique map titled 'A New & Accurate Map of the Western Parts of Barbary' and 'A New & Accurate Map of the Eastern Parts of Barbary'. Decorative maps of North Africa and the Southern...

A 17th century hand-colored map entitled "Guineae Nova Descriptio" by Gerard Mercator and Jodocus Hondius, published in their 'Atlas Minor' in Amsterdam in 1635. It is focused on the...

La Terre Sainte, The Holy Land, Tiree Des Memoires De M.De.La Rue. Par N. de Fer. Geographe de Sa Majeste Catoliq et de Monseigneur le Dauphin. Avec Privil du Roi 1703 Detailed map of the Holy Land from Nicholas de Fer's L'Atlas Curieux ou le Monde. East is oriented at the top. MAKER Nicolas de Fer 1646-1720 The French cartographer and engraver, Nicolas de Fer, was a master at creating maps that were works of art. The maps that he published were printed during the Baroque period when the decorative arts were characterized by ornate detail. De Fer’s detailed maps and atlases were valued more for their decorative content than their geographical accuracy. Nicolas de Fer was born in 1646. His father, Antoine de Fer, owned a mapmaking firm. At the age of twelve, Nicolas was apprenticed to a Parisian engraver named Louis Spirinx. The family business was starting to decline when his father died in 1673. Nicolas de Fer’s mother, Genevieve, took over the business after the death of her husband. In 1687 the business was passed on to Nicolas and the profits increased after he took over the firm. Nicolas de Fer was a prolific cartographer who produced atlases and hundreds of single maps. He eventually became the official geographer to King Louis XIV of France and King Philip V...