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Auction: 26776 - America 250th Anniversary Sale Ft. Coins, Medals, Banknotes, Objets de Vertu & Ephemera
Lot: 55

USA, Novi Orbis Pars Borealis, America Scilicet, Complectens Floridam, Baccalaon, Canadam, Terram Corte, by Matthias Quad (1557-1613), Cologne, c.1600, double-page uncoloured engraved map based on De Jode's landmark map of 1593, showing North America and the Atlantic Ocean, including the fabled 'north-west passage', rev. German text, 23 x 30cm (Burden 133; Cumming 24), light overall toning, two worn holes in the lower margin and minor small hole in bottom left, repair to reverse seem, otherwise good

Provenance

Dominic Winters Auctioneers, lot 488, 5 March 2026


This work is a landmark map of North America produced in 1600 by Matthias Quad, a Cologne-based cartographer, and engraver Johannes Bussemacher. It appeared in Quad's Geographisches Handtbuch, the first atlas published in the German language. Derived from Cornelis de Jode's 1593 Americae Pars Borealis, the map covers all North America from the unknown Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Pacific to the Atlantic. De Jode's original was itself one of the earliest maps to concentrate on North America and was the first to incorporate the east coast cartography of both John White and Jacques le Moyne; two artists and explorers whose fieldwork shaped European understanding of Virginia and Florida respectively.
Among its most striking features is a wide, open North-West Passage extending the entire width of North America, reflecting the era's persistent hope for a navigable route to Asia. Despite the map's creation more than a century after the continent entered European consciousness, it reveals how limited geographical knowledge was, in particular due to the vast interior between Virginia and the St. Lawrence River.

As a product of the late Renaissance atlas boom and a synthesis of the best available exploration data of its day, the map stands as an important document in the history of cartography and European engagement with the Americas.


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Estimate
$1,000 to $1,500

Starting price
$700