Uncommon coloured wood-cut map of the Americas taken from the first edition of Thevet’s “La Cosmographie Universelle” first published in 1575. According to Burden, the map appears in two further states, state 2 - from the second edition of the book (also in 1575) and state 3 – separately published examples from 1581. Thevet was a Franciscan monk who travelled to the Americas and included his observations in La Cosmographie. The geography of Americas is based principally on Mercator’s 1569 map with the oversized west coast of North America and the bulges on the south-west and north-east coasts of South America. A large, heavily forested southern continent (“Antartique Incongneue”) fills the bottom of the map, merging with New Guinea in the far west and containing scenes of local inhabitants going about their lives. At the top, the north-eastern part of the Asian continent with the Strait of Anian is shown in the west and a strangely elongated Greenland in the east. This finely engraved map, which takes in large parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and perpetuates the myth of the phantom island of Frisland in the north Atlantic, is decorated with two strapwork cartouches, numerous sailing ships and sea monsters. Blank verso. The map has a repair to the right margin that just enters the printed border and short centrefold splits to the blank top and bottom margins, otherwise a finely coloured, dark impression in excellent condition. 35 cm x 45 cm