Jacob van Meurs from Arnoldus Montanus (1625-1683) De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (The New and Unknown World) 1671
Frontispiece made by Jacob van Meurs, a Dutch printmaker, for Arnoldus Montanus’ 1671 The New & Unknown World: or Description of America & the Southland, Containing the Origin of the Americans & South-landers, remarkable voyages thither, Quality of the Shores, Islands, Cities, Fortresses, Towns, Temples, Mountains, Sources, Rivers, Houses, the nature of Beasts, Trees, Plants & foreign Crops, Religion & Manners, Miraculous Occurrences, Old & New Wars: Adorned with Illustrations "drawn from the life in America," & described by Arnoldus Montanus. Frontispiece seems to be a representation of the Americas as a location of plentiful resources where Europeans can take part in expanding trading networks & accumulating wealth. Rather than depicting differences between the various regions of the New World, this frontispiece instead presents a unified “America.” Rather than being portrayed in an inland environment separated from European influence, the figures are shown at a busy port set before a large & menacing European fort, with canons poking through the windows. Despite the fearsome & strange people & animals in the foreground, the immense fort in the background reinforces the European’s stable position & ability to maintain order in the region. In the distant background, beyond the fort, a fleet of European ships seems to be approaching the shore, revealing that European & American economic & cultural exchange will continue.
For most of the 1600s & 1700s, few first-hand images of Native Americans are known to have been created with little or no contemporary documentation. European publishers often used illustrations imagined by European artists, who had never sailed across the Atlantic. These illustators were hired to illustrate written accounts of events in the New World without any visual evidence about how people actually lived & looked. And, so, they had to rely on European fantasy & generic landscapes to create images of America's Indiginous Peoples. For these representations, which tend to be exotic, the artists borrowed indiscriminately, mixing invented & actual details & interchanging characteristics of native groups from both American continents & from Africa.
In the 1671 edition of John Ogilby's (1600-76) America, Being an Accurate Description of The New World, many images of Native Americans are based on the work of Arnoldus Montanus (c 1625–1683). Translated by the bookseller Ogilby from the original Dutch in 1671, the book provides an account of the newly discovered lands in the Americas. Although it is inaccurate, often including fanciful tales of mythical beasts & locations such as the Fountain of Youth, it was widely read & was a highly influential book. At its time, the publication offered the most complete cartographic records to date of North & South America & was the most accurate compendium available of the New World. In 1671 the Amsterdam printer Jacob "van" Meurs (1619-1680) published De nieuwe en onbekende weereld; of Beschryving van america en't zuid-land, or America, by Montanus, a compilation in Dutch of historical accounts from North & South America. Montanus, a Jesuit, seemed to seek illustrations emphasizing the non-Christian, heathen character of Native Americans.
