"A Map of Cape Cod Wherin Is Shown ye Discovery and Settlement of the Same; with the Tracks of ye Pilgrims Carefully Prepared According to Mourts Relation"

Subject: Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Period: 1926 (dated)

Publication:

Color: Hand Color

Size:

19.1 x 15.4 inches
48.5 x 39.1 cm

This highly decorative work is Coulton Waugh's first map of the area, preceding his The Map of Old Cape Cod - The Land of Bold Explorers Heroic Pilgrims Hardy Seamen Great Fisheries and Famous Ships (1930). It centers on a bold title cartouche incorporating a compass rose, fleur de lis, pilgrim, and Indigneous man. There is sparse detail on the landscape, with Waugh focusing instead of cartoonish illustrations of wild life, an Native American man hunting rabbit, and Indigenous dwellings. In the waters are a whale, a Neptune-like figure labeled "ye old man of the sea," a windhead, and three sailing vessels, including the Mayflower. A portrait of "ye stern Captayne" Myles Standish appears at top left. Notes throughout the map indicate landing spots of the Pilgrims. Frederick Coulton Waugh (1896 - 1973), the son of painter Frederick Judd Waugh, designed a number of pictorial maps starting in the 1920s, which he sold in catalogs and out of his Ship Model Shop in Provincetown. He drew the popular adventure comic strip Dickie Dare from 1934 to 1944, and again from 1950 to 1957, and wrote The Comics (1947), a pioneering study on the art form.

References: Hornsby (Picturing America) pp. 14-16; Rumsey #8216.

Condition: A

A crisp impression with a minor stain at bottom right and a short repaired edge tear that just touches the neatline at right.