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DUVAL, Pierre (1618-1683)
[The Americas and the Western Hemisphere] L'Amerique Suivant les dernieres Relations avec les Routes que l'on tient pour Les Indes Occidentales
Paris: M[ademois]elle DuVal, dated 1679 [but 1688]. Copper-engraved wall map, with original outline colour, from Duval's "Carte de Geographie," on four unjoined sheets, expertly re-margined with laid paper on two sides of each sheet, compensating margins at the places where the maps were previously joined. Each sheet 19 1/8 x 23 5/8 inches, if joined the sheets would form a map measuring 34 x 45 inches.
A magnificent seventeenth century wall map of the Americas and the Western Hemisphere by one of the greatest French cartographers
This superb map of the New World evinces mid-seventeenth century French geographical knowledge, based largely upon the work of the great French cartographer, Nicolas Sanson, Duval's father-in-law. It is also an excellent example of the French cartographic aesthetic, exalting clarity and classical elegance. Duval, with some geographical modernizations, based this map on his smaller 1655 rendering of the same subject.
California is depicted as an island, as rendered by contemporary Dutch cartographers such as Frederick de Wit and Carel Allard. A speculative aspect also dominates the portrayal of the rest of the American Southwest, such as the labelling of the mythical land of "Quivira" on the mainland, and the depiction of the Rio Grande as having its source in the fictitious "Lac de Conibas," and its terminus in the Gulf of California.
The depiction of the American Northeast is somewhat more progressive than that shown by Sanson. New York, Boston, Cape Cod, Virginia and Maryland are each specifically named. Up into the interior, Duval shows all five Great Lakes, however the boundaries of Lakes Superior and Michigan ("Lac des Puans") are left undetermined.
Most of the American Southeast is shown as a part of the great Spanish territory of "Floride," which extends north into the Carolinas. South Carolina is labeled "Floride Françoise," and "Charles-Fort," the abortive French settlement on Port Royal Sound from the 1560s, is labeled here.
Interestingly, this map seems to have been a rhetorical device intended to promote the idea of a Northwest Passage that runs through the Canadian Arctic and then through a supposed strait into the Pacific Ocean. Duval makes the case clearly by stating that "It is believed that this strait communicates between the Seas of the North and the South". Supporting this notion, the map features the track of a supposed 1665 voyage that headed through the Davis and Hudson's Straits, and over through the "Mer Glaciale," heading towards "Iesso," a mythical land located to the north of Japan. The South Pacific and Australasia are shown to be largely a mystery to the European consciousness, with New Zealand being connected to the mythical "Terre de Quir."
The map is beautifully embellished with two Baroque cartouches including allegorical and native figures, and sailing ships. Each mapsheet is also adorned with side panels of text that explain political and geographical details of the regions featured. This map is the second state of Duval's map of the New World, printed under the privilege of his daughter, who was one of the inheritors of his firm upon his death in 1683. The imprint in the general title is altered to read "Chez Mlle. Du Val, Fille de l' Auteur Sur le Quay de l'Orloge, proche le coin de la rue de Harlay a l'ancien Buis."
Each of the four sheets is separately titled, as follows: [upper left] "Le Nouveau Mexique et La Terre de Jesso"; [lower left] "La Mer de Sud dit autrement Mer Pacifique"; [upper right] "La Mer de Nort ou sont La Nle. France, La Floride [&c.]"; [lower right] "Le Perou, Le Chili, La Magellanique, La Plata, et Le Bresil".
Burden, The Mapping of North America II, 508; McLaughlin, California as an Island, 66; Pastoureau, Les Atlas Francais XVIe-XVIIe siecles, Duval II-F, maps: 10,11,13,14 (State 2); Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America, 414; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, 60.
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#6774 $14,500.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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