Old Map of the Pacific by Pieter Goos, 1663
Price range: £35.55 through £59.95
Pacific sea chart by Pieter Goos, 1663
Prepared by Amsterdam chartmaker Pieter Goos, this rare chart surveys the Pacific between California and the Mariana Islands. It reflects European geographical knowledge before the great voyages of James Cook: California appears as an island, a northern Strait of Anian is proposed, and the separation between Asia and North America is exaggerated. New Zealand and Tasmania are also marked, making this a fascinating record of what seventeenth-century chartmakers knew, and what they still misunderstood.
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Historical Background
Pieter Goos’s chart opens the Pacific between California and the Mariana Islands as a vast navigable space. Its outlines reveal both recent discoveries and persistent European errors: California is drawn as an island, a Strait of Anian suggests a northern passage, and Asia and North America are set far apart.
Map Details
- Original title: Pascaerte vande Zuyd-Zee tussche California, en Ilhas de Ladrones
- Cartographer and publisher: Pieter Goos, Amsterdam
- Date: Dated 1663; later issued in De Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Wereld
- Area shown: Pacific Ocean between California and the Mariana Islands
Princeton University Library describes the 1663 chart as prepared ahead of the first known edition of Goos’s sea atlas, published in 1667. The map also records the Dutch voyages of Abel Tasman: New Zealand and Tasmania (then Van Diemen’s Land) appear in the South Pacific, while the Mariana Islands sit to the west. The chart therefore combines useful maritime geography with the incomplete and sometimes mistaken outlines that preceded Cook’s surveys.
Notice how the map treats California and the imagined northern passage, then compare those features with the more firmly charted islands farther south. These details show that this is not simply a map of what had been found; it also records the expectations European sailors brought to the Pacific. Its broad ocean, engraved rhumb lines and hand colouring give the sheet both navigational character and considerable decorative presence.
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