A monumental sea chart of the Strait of Dover and southern North Sea

HOOGHE, Romeyn de.

Carte Nouvelle des Costes de Hollande, Zéelande, Flandre, Picardie, & Normandie, depuis la Brille jusques à Dieppe, avec une Partie des costes d'Angleterre, depuis l'emboucheure de la Tamise, et les Isles Voisines jusques à Bevesier...
Amsterdam, Pierre Mortier, 1693. Original colour with additions, including gold highlights. Two sheets conjoined, total 595 x 955mm.

Some minor restoration.

A superb sea chart of the Strait of Dover, showing the English coast from The Naze to Beachy Head, with the Thames Estuary to Dartford, and the Continental coast from Brielle to Dieppe.
The chart is dedicated to Maximilian II Emanuel (1662-1726), Elector of Bavaria, in his role as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, whose arms surmount the prospects of Dunkirk and Calais in the large cartouche bottom right. Maximilian later allied with France when the War of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1701. He had to flee Bavaria for the Spanish Netherlands when he lost the Battle of Blenheim to the Duke of Marlborough in 1704; two years later he lost the Battle of Ramillies (again to Marlborough) and had to take refuge in France. At the end of the War the Spanish Netherlands were handed to Austria, meaning Maximilian was their last governor, but Louis XIV insisted that Austria restore his titles in Bavaria.
The chart appeared in one part of Mortier's 'Neptune François', titled 'Cartes Marines a l'Usage des Armées du Roy de la Grande Bretagne'. The nine charts of this section, all engraved by Romeyn de Hooghe, one of the foremost artist/etchers of the period, was described by Koeman as the 'most spectacular type of maritime cartography ever produced in 17th century Amsterdam'.
Mortier's motives in the production of this atlas was to flatter the Dutch king on the British throne since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, William III, to whom it is dedicated. The unprecedented size of the atlas and the use of artists such as de Hooghe were not cheap: Again Koeman calls it the 'most expensive sea atlas' of the period, 'intended more as a show-piece than something to be used by the pilots as sea'.

KOEMAN: vol 4. p. 423-4, M.Mor 5.
Stock ID : 22529