A New and Accurat Map of the World - John Speed, 1651. (World Map In Color)
This is a big, busy world map with two round hemispheres and a lot happening in the borders. Warm parchment tones, soft reds and gold outlines make it feel like a page pulled from a 1600s atlas, and the detail works well in a study, living room or library corner with books, wood and brass around it.
About this map printThis print is based on John Speed’s famous double hemisphere world map A New and Accurat Map of the World, first issued in the 1620s and later dated 1651. in his world atlas A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World. It is one of the earliest world maps printed in England and one of the first widely available maps to show California as an island and to mark the new English settlement of New Plymouth in America.
Speed’s geography leans heavily on Dutch sources like Jodocus Hondius, but the decoration is where this map really stands out. Around the hemispheres you see portraits of the four great circumnavigators Magellan, Drake, Cavendish and Van Noort, two celestial hemispheres, and personifications of the four elements fire, air, earth and water, plus diagrams of eclipses and heavenly spheres. Across the bottom sits a large “Southerne Unknowne Land” that wraps around the pole instead of a mapped Australia, a reminder that much of the southern hemisphere was still guesswork when this was engraved. The crowded borders and strong baroque style put it in the same visual family as later showpiece maps like Visscher’s Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis, but here the central hemispheres stay relatively clear so the coastlines and place names are easy to read.
Craft & finishThis antique world map print is made on hand processed paper, highlighted with subtle gold and sealed with beeswax so it feels like real parchment when you hold it. The surface catches the light softly, with a slight sheen over the oceans and borders, but colors can look slightly different from screen to screen.
Find more prints like this in our Antique Maps collection.
A New and Accurat Map of the World (John Speed, 1651.) - Antique World Map
In case your print creases during the travel, as it usually does travel for some time, you can safely warm it up with a hair-dryer, and the wax will melt back right into it. You can also use a lighter, which is a much faster method, but be careful to keep the flame either above the paper or parallel to it (which means holding the paper vertically) so it doesn't smudge or even catch fire. The chance of the print actually creasing is very small, as they are rolled in bubble-wrap and shipped in a cardboard box. Also, be sure to keep the print out of the direct sunlight, as it can melt or fade.
Visit the link below to see more about how our replicas are made, how to display them, and repair the damage:
https://www.artifex-replicas.com/post/about-our-parchment-replicas
