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d’Allemagne, Carte de la Mer, Contenant les Bancs Isles et Costes Comprises depuis Bergen et les Isles Schetland jusque au Pas de Calais. With two compass cards, 5fold longitudinal reference, and English, French, and German miles indicators. Coloured chart in Mercator’s projection 1 : 1.55 million engraved by Herman van Loon. (Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1693). Inscribed. 61.2 x 85.9 cm.

Cf. Koeman M. Mor 1, 5 + Phillips 517 + 2848. – On especially strong laid paper with large figurative + multi-lined typographic watermarks. – Isolated tiny marginal tears especially in the wide white lateral margins and pinhead-small holes at the upper margin of the chart close to the fold, all backed acid-freely. Here also a V-shaped, however, by tone & shape quite unobtrusive tidemark extending 28 cm into the subject widely following coast and compass lines (loxodrome) resp. In the lower half of the chart minor box pleats resulting from print. Otherwise of unused freshness as already Koeman states on the Neptune as such:

“ Its charts are larger and more lavishly decorated than those of any preceding book of this kind … This magnificent work was intended more as show-piece than something to be used by the pilots at sea. ”

Impression from the French original plate with the anchor mark decorated by three fleur-de-lis of the Depot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine – founded in 1720 – that took over the plates of the Neptune françois in 1751 (Lexikon der Kartographie, vol. C2, p. 734) and with the price note “trente Sols”. On the simultaneous copy by Pieter Mortier, Amsterdam, his “Faite par Ordre du Roy, à Paris 1693” appeared instead of mark and price, all later editions bear Mortier’s own address.

One of the compass cards with the sun of Louis XIV. – Standing out among the sands the Doggerbank, but due to the numerous depth especially instructive the representation of the mud flats of North, East, and West Frisia and the sands in the Channel, the mouth of the Thames and in The Wash. – The Norwegian coast from about North Fjord on 62° northern latitude up to Oslo Fjord, the Danish coast still with Skagen and Randers in the Cattegatt. On the German side Elbe and Weser with Hamburg and Bremen + Delmenhorst resp., on the Dutch side the whole Zuyderzee and further over Zeeland including Antwerp up to Cap Gris-Nez. The English east coast from the Orkneys over Cape Strathy – Dornoch – Firth of Forth up to Stirling – the Thames up to London and the channel coast till about Hastings.

A  classic  chart  of  our  waters  –  instructive + grandiose  at  the  same  time .

Offer no. 28,019  /  price on application