Du Val, Pierre — Samuel de Champlain | First published state of this rare and important map of Canada and the Great Lakes, 1653

Du Val, Pierre — Samuel de Champlain

Le Canada faict par le Sr. Champlain ou sont la Nouvelle France La Nouvelle Angleterre La Nouvelle Holande La Nouvelle Suede La Virginie &c. Avec les Nations voisines et autres Terres nouvellement decouvertes Suivant les Memoires de... Paris: En l'Isle du Palais sur le grand Cours de l'eau, 1653

Engraved map (427 x 568 mm). Hand-colored in outline; old central fold, mild toning, light mat burn in the margins, losses at the upper corners, cracks touching the neatline from upper left corner, a shallow folded-over section at lower edge, an old strip of paper pasted along the length of the top edge, and the remnants of a stub pasted along the fold on the verso. Matted.

For this rare, foundational map of North America, Pierre Du Val updated and improved an unfinished 1616 copperplate by Samuel de Champlain, known in a single proof copy. As such, this is the earliest obtainable state of the map, and the first published version.

In 1953, the John Carter Brown Library acquired the only known copy of the 1616 first state of Champlain's map, Le Canada. It was based on his 1612 map of Nouvelle France, but updated to include the discoveries he had made on his ambitious inland expedition of 1615. During that journey, accompanying his Huron allies, he travelled some 700 miles deep into unrecorded territories, from Quebec up the Ottawa River, then across to Georgian Bay on Lake Huron ("Mer Douce") and down to Lake Ontario ("Lac St. Louis"). During the voyage, Champlain was severely wounded in the leg by an arrow, forcing him to spend the winter of 1615–16 in Huron territory. Once he was able to return to France, he had a map of his new discoveries engraved by the Maison Tavernier.

Champlain's map covers the area from Florida at the south to Greenland, the Hudson Bay, and the "Ocean Septemtrional Glacial" at the north. It is the first map to show Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, and the first to use John Smith's 1612 Virginia as a model for the Chesapeake. It also shows that Champlain was aware of the Dutch presence in New York. It suggests two possible waterways leading across the continent to Asia, either via the ocean at the North, or through the Great Lakes, both of which he left open-ended.

Champlain's 1616 map was left unfinished, lacking much of the detail, embellishments, and place names that would appear on Du Val's later states. In 1954, Lawrence Wroth demonstrated through paper analysis that, for whatever reason, the surviving 1616 proof map was not printed until 1653. After Du Val purchased the copperplate, he would have wanted to assess what changes he needed to make to it, so he struck a few copies that were never intended for publication. He then reworked the plate.

The present map, Du Val's 1653 first state, updates Champlain's unfinished map by adding a cartouche, numerous place names, various embellishments, informative text, the borders of different European and Indigenous territories, and various geographic features, such as the coast of "Nouveau Danemarq," "New North Walles," and the "Destroit de Frobisher." It would go through 4 additional states in 1664, circa 1664, circa 1670, and 1677, all with minor changes.

According to Burden, "all of these later issues are rare." He notes only 4 copies of this 1653 state in institutions. While we are unable to locate a single example of the 1653 state of the map to appear at auction, we do note that an example was offered in the trade by Richard Arkway in 1999 (Rare Book Hub), and that this map was purchased from Arkway in 1992.

REFERENCES

Burden, 309; Burden 188 (proof state); Wroth, L. C., "An unknown Champlain map of 1616," Imago Mundi, Vol. XI (1954), pp. 85–94

PROVENANCE:

Richard Arkway (sold in 1992 to the present owner)