Pieter Goos. (Arabia and East Africa) Pascaerte Van't Westelycke Deel van Oost Indien. 1666.

Pieter Goos.

Pascaerte Van't Westelycke Deel van Oost Indien.

Amsterdam: 1666.

Engraved map, gilded, with original hand color, of the east coast of Africa to the west coast of India.

Single sheet (25 ¾ x 21 ½ inches, full margins with platemark).

Beautifully hand colored map of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, possibly colored by the school of Dirk Janzoon Van Santen.

Decorative sea chart of the Indian Ocean, orientated with the north to the left.

The highly decorative chart shows the East African coast, Arabia, Madagascar and the islands of the Indian Ocean with the Seychelles and the Maldives. The sea is ornated with two sailing ships, a compass rose, at the bottom a decorative title cartouche, surrounded by African natives, next to it a mileage scale with Dutch, Spanish and English distances in nautical miles.

In this period the Dutch East India Company was leading in trading in Asia and exploring the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia.

Van Santen was a distinguished colorist working in Amsterdam at the end of the 17th century, and was known for his lavish gold work often complimented with other expensive pigments such as ultramarine (Goedings 20). The contrasting gold rays found in the sunburst above the cartouche of this map, as well as the meticulous detailing of the Equator, the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the compass rose, the ships, and the cartouche point to a master colorist. During the seventeenth century, Amsterdam stood at the vanguard of sea chart production. With the expansion of the Dutch marine and mercantile empires it is of little surprise that this particular city excelled in the field with the most up-to-date information arriving with the country's sailing fleet. The Goos' were one of many families to derive a living from the creation of sea charts. This stunning map comes from Pieter Goos' atlas of sea charts, De Zee Atlas ofte Water-Weereld. The son of noted engraver Abraham Goos, he was one of the most important booksellers in Amsterdam during the second half of the seventeenth century, as well as an accomplished engraver. His first pilot was the Zee-Spiegel of 1650 which covered largely European waters. The Zee Atlas covered the whole world. Both atlases were well produced and aimed as much at the merchant, as the sea-going pilot. Designed to appeal to the armchair traveller, Goos's prospective clients were "Heeren en Kooplieden" (gentleman and merchants) before "Schippers en Stuurlieden" (pilots and seamen). Based on Hendrick Doncker's "Zee-Atlas" of 1659, particularly for its charts, and reprinted several times without much revision: 20 editions of Goos’ ‘Zee-Atlas’ were published between 1666 and 1683, a testament to its enduring popularity.