The Continents
De Wit's Wall Map of the Americas
A Dutch wall map that survived its own wall.
- Map
- Nova et accurata totius Americae tabula
- Mapmaker
- Frederik de Wit
- Date
- 1660
- Held by
- Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library · via Digital Commonwealth
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
Frederik de Wit published this wall map of the Americas in Amsterdam in 1660, engraved on a large scale and coloured by hand in the Dutch manner of the period, with text in Latin, Dutch and French. Wall maps like it were hung in public rooms, and most were faded or torn to pieces by the light and the handling. This one survives in remarkable condition, and no other copy of it had been recorded. The west coast of North America looks strange to modern eyes, and California is an island, the error British and Dutch mapmakers had accepted since the 1630s.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain map held by Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library · via Digital Commonwealth — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper or 400gsm canvas; framed pieces sit behind acrylic.
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed and linen-backed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our maps cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the sea monsters, the tiny place-names, the burin lines — on matte paper that holds every line without glare.
