Frederik de Wit’s first world map was first published in Hendrik Doncker’s ‘Zee- 

’ of 1660 and was soon followed by his much more ambitious twelve-sheet wall map of the world.

Like Nicolaes Visscher’s map of two years earlier (see SC-TM-1658-Visschert-NWMap), Frederik de Wit’s world map was based on 

’s large wall map of 1648. De Wit, however, has made a number of edits including the removal of the large inland sea in North America and the piece of land marked ‘Yedso’ north of Japan. Northeast Asia has been much reduced in area. The space between the hemispheres and the rectangular border is fully taken up with two celestial spheres (at the top) and north and south polar projections and astronomical diagrams (at the bottom). 

Following the contemporary fashion for extravagant decoration, the border of the map includes representations of the four elements: wind, fire, earth, and water, festooned by hanging garlands of fruits and flowers. De Wit’s map was one of the most decorative standard-sized maps of the time, and its survival was less common than his other atlas world maps of 1668, 1670, and 1680.

Frederik de Wit (1630–1706) moved to Amsterdam in 1648 where he began work as a cartographic engraver. His plan of Haarlem was issued around the same year as well as city views for Antonius Sanderus’s ‘Flandria Illustrata’. He was initially apprenticed to 

, but by 1654 he had his own business, issuing his own map of the world, ‘Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula’, as both a wall map and a folio map sheet in 1660. Two years later, he began to print atlases, the earliest of which were small compilations of prints from the stock of contemporaries.

De Wit was granted the privileges of citizenship of Amsterdam after he married Maria van der Way, who was a native of the city. He became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke there in 1664. In 1675, he published a maritime atlas, ‘Tabula Maritimae’ and in 1695, a book of city views of the Netherlands, ‘Perfekte aftekeningen der steden van de XVII Nederlandsche provincien’. The plates were later bought by the Blaeu family and reused for their town books. After the death of de Wit, Maria continued the business until 1710, but his son, a successful stockfish merchant, did not follow his father into cartography.

Frederik De Wit’s world map was first published in Hendrik Doncker’s ‘Zee- 

’ of 1660, and was soon followed by his much more ambitious twelve-sheet wall map of the world.

Like Nicolaes Visscher’s world map created two years prior, de Wit’s map is based on 

’s large wall map of 1648. De Wit’s geography did not include the large inland sea in North America nor the piece of land marked ‘Yedso’ north of Japan. Northeast Asia has been much reduced in area. The space between the hemispheres and the rectangular border is fully taken up with two celestial spheres at the top and north and south polar projections and astronomical diagrams at the bottom.

A richly coloured example of Frederik De Wit’s first, and arguably, most beautiful world map.

Double-page copperplate engraved double-hemisphere map of the world, with vignettes of alternative projections, and with contemporary hand-colour in full.

De Wit’s First World Map