GOOS, Pieter (1616-1675) . Pascaert Vande Caribes Eylanden. Amsterdam: 1666. Engraved sea chart, period hand-colouring in outline. Sheet size: 21 1/2 x 25 inches. Minor age toning.

Fine seventeenth century sea chart of the islands of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Lesser Antilles.

The seventeenth century was the Golden Age of Dutch mapmaking. As the world's greatest trading nation, marine cartography was a particular specialty, and no one produced more lavish sea charts than Pieter Goos. Famed for its beauty, Koeman notes that Goos' sea-atlas was more intended for the booklover than for the seaman. Finely drawn and engraved, printed on top quality paper, and beautifully coloured, they were intended more for the merchant collector than the practical mariner. Goos' Zee-Atlas was the companion marine atlas of choice for Blaeu's famous terrestrial atlas, the Atlas Maior. Pieter Goos was one of Amsterdams most prominent publishers of nautical charts. The reputation of his firm was matched only by that of the publishing houses of Blaeu and van Keulen (Putnam).

This fine chart depicts the islands of the Antilles and the northern coast of South America. It is oriented with west to the top of the map. The map is decorated with a compass rose, as well as a pair of galleons and a decorative cartouche.

Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Volume IV, pp. 193, 197 and 199; Putnam, Early Sea Charts, pp. 99-100; Tooley, Dictionary of Mapmakers, p. 253.