DANCKERTS, Justus (1635-1701). Novissima et Accuratissima Totius Americae Descriptio. Amsterdam: [circa 1680]. Copper-engraved map. Sheet size: 21 1/2 x 24 1/2 inches.

The first state of Danckert's first map of North and South America.

Danckerts here issues a version of De Witt's circa 1675 map of the same title (i.e., Burden 465, between state 3 and state 4 of that issue). Cartographically, the two are very similiar, and thus Burden's notes on the earlier apply. Of that map, Burden writes: The map is cartographically drawn directly from De Wit's own wall map version published in 1672. The most notable improvement is the depiction of the five Great Lakes, this for the first time on a Dutch map. There is also an altered west coast depiction of the Hudson Bay region. Both features appear to have been taken from Guillaume Sanson's Amerique Septentrionale, published in 1669 (Burden 465). As in the De Wit map, the decorative cartouche on the present map by Danckerts draws from an earlier Visscher map of the western hemisphere.

The present map is Burden's first state, with the additional cartouche at the top left, without the mapping of New Guinea and neighboring islands in the South Pacific, and without Terra Esonis in the north. In circa 1696, Danckerts would re-issue this map from a new plate, the present plate apparently having worn out or been damaged (see Burden 725). This earlier version, however, is considerably more scarce, particularly in its first state, with Burden noting that only a handful of examples of Danckert's atlas from this early period are extant.

Burden, The Mapping of North America 527 (state 1); McLaughlin, Mapping of California as an Island 75.