Henri Chatelain’s celebrated 1719 map centring on the New World, extending across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans from eastern Asia to western Europe.

This spectacular wall map is an illustrated encyclopaedia of discovery and exploration in the Americas. It is known for being “one of the most elaborately engraved maps of the Western Hemisphere" (Schwartz & Ehrenberg), embellished with over thirty fascinating vignettes including depictions of trading ports and notable cities, important historical events, work (a sugar mill), life (a Canadian marriage), death (an Aztec sacrifice) and the iconic scene of industrious beavers building a dam. The upper centre of the map features a series of portraits of famed European explorers including Columbus, Drake, La Salle, Magellan, Schouten and Vespucci, and their routes trace across the seas.

As is indicated in the maps’ title, “Carte tres curieuse de la mer du sud …”, there is some rather curious geography featured on the map; Following European discovery in 1606, cartographers are still finding the edges of Australia (“Nouvelle Hollande”) and Papua New Guinea – both feature sweeping unfinished coastlines. In the Pacific Northwest, further speculation and the long-unanswered question of the existence of a North West Passage, and due south, the idea that California was perhaps not an island is challenged with careful engraving to indicate a speculative coastline and a small annotation stating that some believe it could be connected to mainland North America. Spanish missionary Father Eusebio Kino would confirm this in his letters in 1701.

Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743) was a Huguenot pastor and printmaker who lived in Paris, London, The Hague and finally, Amsterdam. This enormous map is presented on four sheets joined and would have originally been featured within Chatelain’s comprehensive “Atlas Historique” which was published between 1705 and 1720 in 7 volumes.

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