Joan Blaeu, Virginia Colony Map, 17th Century

Joan Blaeu, Virginia Colony Map, 17th Century

The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America. The founder of the new colony was the Virginia Company with the first settlement in Jamestown on the north bank of the James River. Jamestown occupied land belonging to the Powhatan Confederacy. Joan Blaeu (1596-1673) was a Dutch cartographer, the son of cartographer Willem Blaeu. In 1635 they published the Atlas Novus (full title: Theatrum orbis terrarum, sive, Atlas novus) in two volumes. The Atlas Maior is the final version of Joan Blaeu's atlas, published in Amsterdam between 1662 and 1672, in Latin, French, Dutch, German and Spanish, containing 594 maps and around 3,000 pages of text. The Blaeu maps emphasized fine art and colours, being the most expensive of the time. The Atlas Maior is widely considered a masterpiece of the Golden Age of Dutch/Netherlandish cartography.

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4200 x 3309 px | 39.8 MB

35.6 x 28.0 cm | 14.0 x 11.0 in (300 dpi)