West Indische Paskaert. Johannes Loots (c. 1665-1726) & Pieter Goos (1615-1675) Engraved map with original hand color. Amsterdam: Joannes Loot, [ca. 1695]. 33 2/8 x 39 6/8 inches sheet, 42 x 49 inches framed. An exceptionally fine engraved map of the Atlantic Ocean This is the Johannes Loots state of Willem Blaeus second West Indische Paskaert (ca. 1630), a map of landmark importance, being the first sea chart relating to North America to use Gerard Mercators projection. It is probable that the sea chart was originally intended for the sole use of the Dutch West India Company and the map shows the area chartered to the Company in 1621. The latest geographical information included is derived from the voyage of the Admiral LHermite to Tierra del Fuego between 1623 and 1626. The map extends from Ireland to New-Foundland in the north and to the Cape of Good Hope and Rio de la Plata in the south, and from the Gulf of Mexico in the west to Greece in the east. An inset map in the interior of South America shows that part of the continent which could not be included in the main map. Even by the latter part of the seventeenth century, this map remained enormously important for Western navigation to Brazil, because it was only in 1685 that the first charts of the Brazilian coast were published by Robijn. Schilder, Monumenta, Vol. IV, p.114, 63.4; Burden, The Mapping of North America, Map 233, State 4