A World in Blue – Pieter Goos Map, 1666

A World in Blue

Pieter Goos published this remarkable double-hemisphere map in Amsterdam in 1666 under the title Orbis Terrarum Nova et Accuratissima Tabula.

It appeared in his celebrated sea atlas, De Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Weereld—the Sea Atlas or Water World—at a time when Amsterdam stood at the centre of European map publishing, maritime trade and overseas exploration.

The colouring of this particular reproduction gives the map a lighter and cooler appearance than many seventeenth-century designs. Soft blue seas and cloud-filled skies create a restful decorative quality, while the intricate engraving preserves the richness and curiosity of the original.

The world beneath an open sky

The two hemispheres sit at the centre of an extraordinary theatrical composition.

Above them, the sun breaks through swirling clouds as birds cross the sky. Among the flock is a goose, included as a playful reference to the cartographer’s surname, Goos.

Around the map, faces emerging from the clouds represent the winds that carried ships across the oceans. The effect is full of movement: the world appears suspended beneath an immense sky, surrounded by currents of air, weather and flight.

Small maps of the northern and southern polar regions sit beneath the hemispheres. The north contains a developing picture of the Arctic, while the south remains largely empty—a visual reminder of how much of the globe was still unknown to European cartographers.

Spring flowers and frozen canals

Across the lower border, four beautifully engraved scenes represent spring, summer, autumn and winter, as well as the different stages of human life.

Spring is accompanied by flowers and a pot of tulips. Summer and autumn are surrounded by crops, fruit and the abundance of the harvest. Winter sits wrapped against the cold, smoking a long pipe as tiny figures skate across a frozen landscape.

These charming Dutch details bring the map down from the scale of continents and oceans to the familiar rhythms of everyday life.

A world still being discovered

The geography records a mixture of genuine discovery, incomplete information and inherited myth.

California appears as an island separated from mainland North America. The northwest coast of the continent simply disappears, reflecting the absence of reliable European knowledge about the northern Pacific.

Australia appears as Nova Hollandia, or New Holland, with sections of its northern, western and southern coastline gradually taking shape from Dutch voyages. Tasmania is also shown following the journeys of Abel Tasman, although Australia’s eastern coast remained largely unknown.

The empty spaces and uncertain shorelines are among the map’s most appealing features. They allow us to see the world not as a finished picture, but as something being assembled slowly from voyages, sailors’ reports, trading records and earlier charts.

Historic map, contemporary colour

Although created more than three centuries ago, this blue-toned edition has a surprisingly versatile appearance.

The cooler colouring works particularly well with natural wood, off-white, blue-grey, stone and neutral interiors. From a distance, the twin hemispheres create a strong and balanced design. Viewed more closely, the map reveals ships, animals, seasonal scenes, unfamiliar place names and geographical curiosities.

It makes an unusual focal point for a home office, library, hallway or living room, and a thoughtful gift for anyone interested in travel, maritime history, geography or historic design.

Carefully reproduced and printed individually to order in our Cornwall workshop using archival pigment inks and traditionally textured fine art paper. The print is supplied unframed, allowing you to select a frame that complements your own room.

What this historic world map shows

• Eastern and western hemispheres
• Northern and southern polar projections
• California represented as an island
• Early mapping of Nova Hollandia, or Australia
• Tasmania following the voyages of Abel Tasman
• Incomplete coastlines in the northern Pacific
• Birds flying through a cloud-filled sky
• A goose representing the cartographer’s name
• Faces symbolising the winds
• Spring flowers and Dutch tulips
• Harvest scenes representing summer and autumn
• Ice skaters and a pipe-smoking figure of winter
• Seventeenth-century place names and geographical ideas