VISSCHER, Nicolaes II (1649-1702).
Atlas minor, sive geographia compendiosa qua orbis terrarum per paucas attamen novissimas tabulas Ostenditura.
Amsterdam: Nicolaes Visscher, [ca 1689, or later].

Comparables: Christie's, 2016 - $75,000; Marc Van de Wiele Auctions, 2021 - 62,500 Euro.

Folio (21 1/2" x 13"). Letterpress title-page and index leaf listing 21 maps. Fine engraved allegorical title-page with original hand-color in full (Koeman Vis 12), fine double-page engraved double-hemisphere map of the world (Shirley 406, 1658), and 28 double-page maps, including two with index panels added to either side, and three folding (some early repairs to verso, and the map of North America torn with extensive loss). Bound in contemporary boards newly backed with scarlet morocco gilt.

The highly attractive world map "Orbis Terrarum Nova Et Accuratissima Tabula" (1658) is "regarded as the master forerunner of a number of highly decorative Dutch world maps [with] minor variations in the still unknown coastline of North America. The northern part of California (as an island) has been flattened and is now entitled Nova Albion, still further north a small piece of land or an island Anian appears adjacent to a strait leading within striking distance of the west shores of Hudson's Bay. In China, stippling is used for the first time in a general map to denote a desert: this is the extensive Xamo Desertum . just west of the Great Wall of China" (Shirley). The detailed allegorical border depicts dramatic classical scenes representing the rape of Persephone, Zeus being carried across the heavens in an eagle-drawn chariot, Poseidon commanding his entourage, and Demeter receiving the fruits of the Earth. Two smaller spheres fall between the cusp of the larger hemispheres and based on polar projections that of the south pole depicts the southernmost tip of South America. Among the others are many maps of Europe, the continents, and a map of the East Indies showing most of the western and northern coastline of Australia, Britain with additional index panels at either edge, Scotland (corner strengthened on verso), Ireland (ditto), Poland, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, folding map of the Roman Empire, 2 maps of the Rhineland and Moselle, Switzerland, the 17 Provinces of "Germania Inferior," Belgium, Belgii Regii, a folding map of Galle and Francia with index panels at either edge (extensive early repairs to verso), Spain and Portugal, Italy, a folding map of Hungary, a folding map of the Turkish empire, the Greek archipelago, the East Indies showing the northern coastline of Australia, Africa, Barbary, North and South America, South America, North America (which is torn with considerable loss).