Description
PUBLICATION DETAILS: Imprint: Ex officina Judoci Hondij. Under imprint: D. Grijp. Sculpt. 15”h x 19”w.
BACKGROUND: Captain John smith was a member and future leader of the Jamestown, Virginia settlement. While there he explored and mapped the area, focusing on the waterways and locating the Indian tribes. He compiled his notes and sketches and in November 1608, sent several documents to England, including a “Mappe of the bayes and rivers.” Smith’s famous map of Virginia was first published in 1607. Because of the immediate popularity of the map, publishers hurried to produce their own versions. They copied his map in various sizes and adorned theirs with creatures and emblems. The noted map collector and writer, Coolie Verner, identified the twelve states (or published variations) of Smith’s map. He also identified nine derivatives; that is, maps of different size and decoration that retain the Smith map’s geography and orientation. Those derivatives were drawn, engraved, and published by various cartographers and publishers beginning in 1618 and continuing into the 1700s. States of these derivative maps also exist.
FIRST DERIVATIVE: This extremely rare map is the first and probably the most important derivative of John Smith’s map “Virginia”. It was taken from the first state of Smith’s map and engraved by Dirck Grijp of Amsterdam.
CHRISTIES AUCTION: In 1993 Christies sold a made-up atlas of Hondius maps tilted Appendix Atlantis Maioris. [Amsterdam:] 1630. In their details of this atlas they offered the following:
“This atlas is particularly important not only for its rarity, the majority of maps only known in 4 examples, but also for the inclusion … of Jodocus Hondius’s name, suggests that the atlas was made up by Jodocus or his widow in mid-1629; the map sheets were presumably assembled from his stock for a prototype Appendix to be displayed in the autumn of 1629 at the Frankfurt bookfair as a continuation of the great Mercator-Hondius atlas. On Jodocus’s death on August 18 1629, about 40 copperplates were sold to Blaeu probably by Jodocus’s widow. These plates had been part of Jodocus’s plan to produce a new modern atlas, less dependent on the Mercator plates that his father had acquired in 1604, and it would therefore make sense that Jodocus considered putting together an assemblage of the maps already cut to engender further interest. In 1630 when Blaeu received the plates he altered the imprint and immediately published them as part of his first atlas, the Atlantis Appendix of 1630, beginning the rise of the Blaeu family to supremacy in the Dutch map business. Henricus Hondius, Jodocus’s brother who had taken over the business, was so enraged that he immediately started collaboration with Johannes Janssonius and ordered in March 2nd 1630 for 36 of these plates to be re-engraved (with minor variations); this resulted in the H. Hondius and Janssonius Appendices of 1630 to 1633.”
RARITY: The map was separately published by Jodocus Hondius, Jr. (1594 or 1595-1629) in 1618. This was probably the Virginia part of the stock referred to by Christies above. We have never seen any other record of the map being included in an atlas or travel book. Apparently, and at most, only a couple of dozen copies were printed, and this map is rarely offered for sale. Research e of the internet reveals that Colonial Williamsburg and Mount Vernon have copies of the map, and that several years ago Jonathan Potter sold on e and Barry Ruderman sold two. Rare Book Hub has no record of one offered or sold. We are not aware of any recent sales nor is any offered on the internet. We have found 8 to 11 1of the 20 or so copies printed. Please let us know about any copies at other institutions or in personal libraries.
GEOGRAPHY: Shows the Virginia-Maryland area with North oriented to the right. In the upper left is a scene depicting the Indian Chief Powhatan and at the right is a standing Susquehanna Indian, facing right, both taken from John White’s 1590 map included in Theodore de Bry’s Part I (Virginia) of his Grands Voyages.
CONDITION: Lightly toned. Thin spot right center. Centerfold reinforced verso. Very good.
CHRONOLOGY:
1618 –Jodocus had approximately 20 copies of his map of Virginia printed showing his engraved name and had some or all of them in his shop, presumably for sale. This is Derivative 1, State 1.
1629 – Jodocus or his wife made up four atlases of 46 maps in preparation for the Frankfurt book fair. The maps were numbered in pencil, and of interest is: 46, Nova Virginia Tabula.
1629 – Jodocus Hondius died.
1629 – Jodocus Hondius’ plates were sold by his widow to Willem Janszoon Blaeu.
1630 – Blaeu substitutes his name and begins selling Jodocus’ plates in his Atlantis Appendix. This is Derivative 1, State 2.
1630 – Jodocus’ younger brother Henricus copied Jodocus’ map, inserted his own name and begins selling in collaboration with Johannes Janssonius. This is Derivative 5, State 1.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Burden, The Mapping of North America, No. 193. With a paragraph about the Hondius map of Virginia in Christies’ auction.
Tooley, The Mapping of America, page 161 and Pl. 68.
Woodridge, Mapping Virginia: From the Age of Exploration to the Civil War, No. 29
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