AN ANTIQUE MAP, "Novissima et Perfectissima Africæ," CAREL ALLARD, AMSTERDAM, 17TH/18TH CENTURY, exquisitely parcel gilt hand colored engraving on paper, Carel Allard (Dutch 1648 - 1709), cartographer and printer, Philip Tideman (Dutch 1657-1705), engraver, with a lower left figural title cartouche of a female personification of Africa with a diamond and peacock diadem, she holds a recurve bow, a quiver of feathered arrows lays at her side, and she wears lapis encrusted sandals, reclining on a basket fruiting with pomegranates and citrus, over the River Niger or Nile where ducks swim unknowingly toward the jaws of a crocodile, and at her feet a cherub rides a lion and leads an ostrich, in the background a camel and elephant caravan passes pyramids rising in the horizon, the title cartouche surmounted by gilt bronze, clay and woven vessels among writhing serpents, overlaid with curving latitudinal and longitudinal lines, one compass rose, and hand inscribed U/L in ink margin number 117. Sheet: 21 1/4" x 24 3/4" Plate: 20 1/4" x 23 5/8" Provenance: Property from a Corporate Collection, Houston, Texas. Property from a Corporate Collection, Houston, Texas