A PrEViOUSLY UnrECOrdEd COASTing PiLOT

25 SELLER, J[OHN]. The Coasting Pilot Describing the Sea Coasts, Chanells, Soundings, Sands, Shoals, Rocks and Dangers, The Bayes, Roads, Harbors, Rivers & Ports with the Buoyes, Beacons, and Sea markes, upon ye Coasts of England, Holland, Flanders & France.

Printed for Jer: Seller & Cha: Price, Hydrographers at ye Hermitage Stairs in Wapping, London, [c.1703].

An APPArEnTLY UnrECOrdEd COASTing PiLOT, published by Jeremiah Seller and Charles Price.

Jeremiah Seller (c.1675 - c.1720), son of the cartographer John Seller, was a mapmaker, instrumentmaker, publisher and Hydrographer to the Queen. In 1698 he joined his mother, Elizabeth Seller, in carrying on the business of his father and, one year later, they joined into partnership with Charles Price. In c.1705, complaints over the quality of their instruments caused Seller and Price to lose their contract with the Admiralty and, as a consequence, the firm was forced into bankruptcy.

As the National Maritime Museum Catalogue makes clear, Seller’s publications were extended and updated as they appeared. This example comprises 13 doublepage charts, mostly published previously by Seller in various works, but also including Moxon’s 1657 Plat of the Channel, as well as A Draught of the Narrow’s Describeing the New-Channel between the Spell and Last, the origin of which we couldn’t trace. A detailed list of the 13 maps is available on request.

Folio (47 x 31 cm). Engraved title, 13 double-page engraved charts, one chart and numerous coastal profiles within text, owner inscription ‘John White, Capt.’ to flyleaf; slight waterstaining to upper and lower margins of title page. Contemporary full calf, panelled boards; header of spine detached.

ref: 81350 £35,000

[CHÂTELAIN, Henri Abraham]. Atlas Historique, ou Nouvelle Introduction à l’Histoire, à la Chronologie à l’Geographie Ancienne & Moderne; Représentée dans de Nouvelles Cartes, ou l’on remarque l’Etablissement des Etats & Empires du Monde, leur Durée, leur Chute, & leurs differents Gouvernements... Freres Chatelain, Amsterdam, 1705-21.

Although the main focus of the text was geography, the work also included a wealth of historical, political, and genealogical information. Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743), his father Zacharie Chatelain (d.1723) and Zacharie Junior (1690-1754), worked as a partnership publishing the ‘Atlas Historique’ under several different Chatelain imprints, depending on the Chatelain family partnerships at the time of publication, as it was reissued by the two surviving brothers in 1732-39.

The sixth volume relates mostly to the Americas and contains the ‘Carte très curieuse de la Mer du Sud’, depicting the history of discovery in the western hemisphere from the time of Columbus to the French explorations in North America up to the late seventeenth century.

In addition to the maps, many of which are based on such as those of Dapper, Chardin, le Bruyn, Le Hay and others, covering China, Japan, Persia, Egypt, Russia as well as the Americas there are early images of native peoples, such as “Esquimaux”, “Hurons”, “Iroquois”, “Cannibales”, “Hottentots”, “Namaquas” etc.

Provenance: Count de Renesse, Antwerp (bookplate to upper pastedowns, blue stamp to titles).

Seven volumes folio. Engraved allegorical titles to vols I, II and IV, 280 engraved plates including maps, genealogical tables, many plates with inset vignettes of arms and portraits, some double page or folding; prelims with some foxing and toning. Contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments, each compartment comprising a sphere and decorative scrolled foliage, or with decorative foliage only, raised bands in gilt; some wear to the joints and boards, corners slightly bumped.

Koemann II, cha 1-7; Tooley 80; Wagner 511; McLaughlin 190; Goss, North America 52

A pAir of lArge mAnuscript mAps of two spAnish fortific Ations, in An uncommon, much stylized design ref: 65654 £5,000

The first is an idealized low level bird’s-eye view of the harbour fortifications of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Alicante was besieged by the Chevalier d’Asfeldt on 30th November 1708, and the town itself taken in December that year, although the castle held out until 19th April 1709, when the British defenders were evacuated by sea. During the siege, the French exploded a huge mine under the walls of the town, which killed the British commander, General John Richards, and caused extensive damage. Perhaps this visualization was created as a suggested reconstruction of the defences at about this time.

The second is a stylized plan, by the same hand, of the Castello Montgri, the fortress of Torroella de Montgri, in north-eastern Spain on the Costa Brava. The fortress was built between 1294 and 1302 on the orders of King Jaime II of Aragon as a defence against Mediterranean pirates who used the facing Illes Medes as a base for raiding the coast. It was designed on a square plan, with towers on each corner, on a vantage point giving it an excellent view of the coast and Illes Medes.

The mapmaker seems confused; while the castello is on the mainland, the implication of the plan is that it was on Meda Gran, one of the larger islets; however the fortress on the island was destroyed when the cliff underneath gave way and collapsed into the sea, before the map was drawn. The fortress was rebuilt later in the eighteenth century, but then intended as a military prison.

Two manuscript maps, with ink and watercolour, on sheets of 62.5 x 86.7 cm each; light trace of fold in centre, Montgri map with small areas restored, small closed tears and backed with Japanese paper.

HUSSON, Pierre (publisher). Variae Tabulae Geographicae in quibus loca in orbe bello flagranta... [Title in French and Dutch]. Diverses cartes de geographie, ou l’on peut voir le theatre de la guerre dans tout le monde. Comme dans les pais de Flandres, de Brabant, de Liege... de Pologne, de Moscovie, en Amerique, &c.... Geographise Land-Kaarten.... Husson, La Haye, [c.1708].

An inTErESTing COMPOSiTE ATLAS wiTh rArE MAPS And PLAnS, clearly assembled to order for a British client, dating from the latter part of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13). From 1709 the full-scale war had petered out as Britain, who underpinned the Grand Alliance, lost the political will to wage further war.

The atlas begins with the Blaeu/Valk world map on a polar projection and Visscher’s set of maps of the continents; thereafter the maps relate to the theatres of the war.

The atlas is significant for containing an important sequence of maps and plans by the Dutch publisher Anna Beek, including the Battle of Wynendale, with letterpress text dated 1708, and plans of Barcelona, Ulm, Dendermonde, Ghent and Douai. As these were originally sold separately, they are now rare and much sought-after.

Other notable inclusions are van der Plaat’s rare plan of Turin and Carel Allard’s map of southern Portugal, with a second sheet of accompanying insets designed to be pasted outside the lower border. The general map of the Mediterranean is formed of the two southern sheets of a wall-map of Europe also by Allard, with a paste-over title to convert it to the new purpose.

The English owner inserted Edward Castle and David Mortier’s small plan of Gibraltar (1705). Castle was essentially a bookseller with premises near the Palace of Whitehall, who dabbled in map-publishing, specialising in news-sheet maps depicting important current events, including the Battle of Blenheim (1704) and two plans of the capture of Gibraltar in 1705. Mortier, brother of the great Amsterdam publisher Pieter Mortier, was an important mapseller, particularly of imported maps, but also published maps, topographical prints and such-like from his shop on the Strand, a shopping street near the Law Courts. As suggested, the partners produced two plans of the siege; the first as an expensive production, advertised as “A new most exact and Accurate Plan of the Town, Castle, Moles and Bay of Gibraltar, which shews all the Fortifications on the Land-side, and the Enemies Approaches, done by Order of His Highness George, Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt; together with a Relation of the Siege of that place, in 3 Sheets of Royal Paper, 3 foot and a half long, and 3 foot deep. Sold for 2s. ...”. ref: 83788

When their rival, John Senex, brought out a smaller (cheaper) plan, Castle and Mortier moved quickly to protect their market, advertising “Whereas there is publish’d a small Plan of Gibraltar, by J. Senex in Cornhill, which being imperfectly Copied from a large Plan sent over by the Prince of Hesse d’Armstad, one half of the Enemy’s Approaches being left out. This is to give Notice, that next Week will be Publish’d by the Proprietors of the said large Plan, an Epitome or Copy of the same in Little; which will be sold for 3d. ...” (‘Daily Courant’, 21st April 1705).

Both versions of the Castle and Mortier plans are rare, the British Library’s example only recently acquired and uncatalogued.

Folio (52 x 32 cm). Letterpress title in red and black, 50 engraved maps, 49 double-page including one folding and one single-page, later 18th-century index in an English hand on front free endpaper (no.30 severely cropped, no.39 lightly cropped, blank fore-corner of no.25 repaired, few small neat repairs, numbered in pencil throughout), ink inscription; bound in later attractive vellum.

£15,000

MORTIER, Pieter. Amsterdam, [Pieter Mortier, c.1710].

A selection of wonderful c ArtogrAphic plAying c Ards in fine originAl colour

By the early 18th century the cartographic range of playing cards was almost completely dominated by one important family of map makers, the Amsterdam map publishing group founded in 1685 by Pieter Mortier (1661-1711). After his death, as his son was underage, the business was continued by his widow Amelia and brother David; his son Cornelis took over control of the business in 1721, and continued it in partnership with Johannes Covens, as Covens & Mortier, on into the 1780s under later members of the families.

Extant sets of the cards can be found with a rulebook, bearing the imprint of Covens and Mortier, but it is likely that the cards were first published by Pieter Mortier towards the end of his life.

All playing cards are rare: designed for play and being of small format, they were extremely vulnerable to damage from handling, and easy to loose, making the pack incomplete and therefore a candidate for being thrown away, so even individual playing cards of this age are difficult to find on the market and particularly desirable for the collector.

Playing card,s fine original outline hand-colour. Dimensions: 8.3 × 5.3 cm. Mann Collection, 1125; Mann, Sylvia & Kingsley, David, ‘Map Collectors’ Circle No. 87: Playing Cards Depicting maps of the British Isles, and of English and Welsh Counties’, p. 23, No.11; King, Geoffrey, ‘Miniature Antique Maps’, p.160.

29

[Playing Cards of Africa].

A great series, including all parts of Africa. The cards are: Biledulgerid, Madagascar, Monomotapa, R[oyaume]. De Nubie, Zanguebar, Cafferie (including South Africa), R[oyaume]. de Congo, Guinee, Pays de Negres, Le Saara ou le Desert, Barbarie, l’Egypte, and the continent itself, L’Afrique.

ref: 80355 £3,000 ref: 80352 £1,250 ref: 80343 £950 rAre And Amusing Allegoric Al mAp of love, that recasts the female pursuit of the male as a siege, depicting in familiar eighteenth-century battle plan conventions, with large decorative title cartouche upper right, showing the heart as a fortress, upper centre, surrounded by The Frozen Sea without Passion

Turquie en Asie.

Including Turkey, Cyprus and the Levant countries.

Isle de Borneo.

N.B.: Other countries may be available; please feel free to inquire.

STALPAERT, Daniel. Platte-Grondt van de Oude en Nieuwe Royinge der Stat Amsterdam. Johannes Covens & Cornelis Mortier, Amsterdam, 1662 [but c.1730].

Rare wall map of Amsterdam by the States’ architect Daniel Stalpaert (1615-76), flanked by the arms of the city and the principal families, commissioned by the city, under the guidance of a committee that included Johannes Blaeu, with a list of dedicatees, the city councillors, along the lower border.

The mid-seventeenth century was a golden age for Amsterdam, a time of great wealth and growth, but it became clear that the existing urban area was too small; in the late 1650s Staelpaert was tasked with preparing a blueprint for the expansion of the city, on a network of new canals. His new streetplan was approved in 1658 and his plan published in 1662. The building work began in 1663; many of the new properties were built by the wealthy, hence their relative grandeur. Among the many new streets constructed was Herengracht.

This plan shows Amsterdam at the height of her powers; but, even as this development celebrated Amsterdam’s success, the city was brought low by an outbreak of bubonic plague, which lasted from 1663 to 1666, brought to Amsterdam on the same ships that generated her wealth, and which killed 10% of the population.

SEUTTER, Mattheus. Representation Symbolique et ingenieuse projettée en Siege et en Bombardement, comme il faut empecher prudemment les attaques de L’Amour. Augsburg, [c.1730].

(Mer Glacee Sans Passion), the territory to the left staging the Attaque d’ L’Amour, orchestrated from the Camp de L’Amour, lower left, which houses the Tentes de General Cupido, with Le Palais de l’Amour surrounded by La Mer d’Inquietude, which is bordered by the Jardin de Plaisir, lower centre.

Engraved map with original hand-colouring; repairs verso at head and foot of central vertical fold and to lower right corner, short split in upper margin. Dimensions: 50 x 58 cm. Framed and glazed: overall dimensions 62 x 70 cm.

34 ref: 90045 £1,450 ref: 91008 £8,750

[ITALY] - Plan des Attaques du Chateau du Milan, Faites le 17 Xbre par l’Armée de France et de Sardeine commandée par le Duc de Savoye et M.Le Mach. de Vilard. 1733.

Beautifully drawn plan of the Milan fortress during the War of Polish Succession, showing the besieging army’s trenches and batteries, as well as Milan’s defenses.

Starting in October 1733, a combined FrancoSardinian army, numbering over 40,000 and led by Charles Emmanuel, rapidly took control of Milanese territory without significant opposition from the roughly 12,000 Austrian troops defending the duchy.

The army was joined in November 1733 by the 81-year-old French Marshal de Villars, who disagreed on strategy with Charles Emmanuel. After the conquest of Tortona in February 1734, the fighting season slowed and the army camped for the winter. Villars asked to be recalled in May 1734 but died en route to France.

Provenance: From the Library of the Dukes of Luynes.

Manuscript hand-coloured plan, cut in two sections and laid on contemporary colour linen. Size : 20.4 cm x 31.8 cm.

STRAHLENBERG, Philipp Johann von. An Historico-Geographical description of the north and eastern parts of Europe and Asia; but more particularly of Russia, Siberia, and Great Tartary. Brotherton, London, 1738.

The author, the Swedish officer Philipp Johann Tabert (1676–1747), ennobled Strahlenberg, spent 10 years in Siberian captivity between 1711-1722 after the defeat of Charles XII. During his stay in Russia he collected information and material on the languages and people of Uralic and Altaic stock, which became the basis for the present work.

The text is of great importance, offering much first hand information - geographical, historical, and ethnographic - about Siberia and Great Tartary. The work also includes early descriptions of the linguistics of the region, with a Kalmyk vocabulary including the translations of Mongolian words. The most important aspect of the present work, however, is Strahlenberg’s rare and significant map representing the Russian realm and Great Tartary, containing extensive information regarding Siberia. Preparing the map, Strahlenberg used his own latitude calculations, as well as expedition accounts written by others.

This copy is of the second English edition (after the first edition in German in 1730 and the first English of 1736), with the map specially re-engraved by Richard William Seale. It comes from the library of the Bickford family, who resided in the historic country house Dunsland in the parish of Bradford near Holsworthy in Devon, England. The manor was home to four generations of the Bickford family from c. 1830. The house was sold in 1947 and subsequently destroyed by fire twenty years later.

Provenance: Bickford Dunsland (inscription to title).

Quarto (22.7 x 17.5 cm). xii, 463pp., with large folding map by R.W. Seale, folding woodcut map, folding table, 10 engraved plates (3 folding including 1 map), woodcut tables and illustrations in text (some full-page); inscription in ink to title, repaired small marginal tear to pp. 311-312. Contemporary calf, gilt ruled covers, spine with raised bands, gilt lettering to second compartment, gilt decorative ornaments to the others; neatly rebacked to style. Cox I, 194; Crowther 2034.

36 DU HALDE, [Jean-Baptiste]. [Large Scale Map of Tibet and environs on nine sheets. London, T. Gardner for E. Cave, 1738-41].

Du Halde’s remarkable large scale map of Tibet published in E. Cave’s English edition of the important Description of the Empire of China and ChineseTartary, together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet.

The maps are:

1. The first Sheet included in ye Map of Tibet, containing ye West end of ye Great Sandy Desart & ye Country about Ha’mi [or Khamul, in little Bûkharia.] ref: 78969

2. The Second Sheet of Tibet, containing the Country [of Little Bûkharia] to ye West of Tursan.

3. The Third Sheet included in the map of Tibet, containing the parts [of Little Bûkharia] about Kathghar.

4. The fourth Sheet comprized in the Map of Tibet containing in particular the country of the Tartars of Koko Nor.

5. The fifth Sheet, which is properly the first, of Tibet, as bounded by China & including the country of the Si-san.

6. The Sixth sheet, which is properly the Second of Tibet, containing the Country to the East of Lasa.

7. The Seventh sheet, which is properly the third sheet of Tibet, including the Country in the Neighbourhood of the Tsanpû to the west of Lasa.

8. The Eighth sheet, which is properly the fourth of Tibet, exhibiting the Origin of the Tsanpu and Ganga or Ganges.

9. The Ninth Sheet of Tibet, containing amoung others, ye Country of Latak [or Ladak].

Engraved map on nine sheets, a few sheets with loss to upper margin. Dimensions: (sheet) (1) 37.5 x 51cm; (2) 41 x 35cm; (3) 41 x 34cm; (4) 38 x 53cm; (5) 55 x 40cm; (6) 52 x 43cm; (7) 53 x 42cm; (8) 44 x 36cm; (9) 44 x 36cm.

£3,600 fine detAiled mAnuscript plAn of the siege of belgrAde of 1717, during the Austro-Venetian-Ottoman War of 1714-18. It shows the fortifications of Belgrade, the lines of investment of the Austrian army, and the Austrian camp.

[BELGRADE]- Environs de Belgrade. 1717 [but c.1740].

At the head of a 100,000-men army and the Danube flotilla Prince Eugene besieged the fortified city, defended by 30,000 men. However he soon found himself caught between two fires, with an Ottoman army sent to relieve Belgrade and arriving behind the Austrians. The issue of the siege was becoming critical for the Austrians, when they were suddenly helped by a powerful explosion: a mortar shell struck the powder magazine inside the fortress and 3,000 defenders were killed. Prince Eugene then successfully attacked the Ottoman army, and the garrison of Belgrade surrendered in exchange for safe passage from the city. The twin successes are one of the high points of Eugene’s glittering military career. ref: 90041 £3,500 think. It is better known today as Guantanamo Bay, the site of the American base on Cuba.

Provenance: From the Library of the Dukes of Luynes.

Manuscript hand-coloured plan, cut in four sections and laid on contemporary colour linen. Size : 66.8 cm x 49.7 cm.

DURELL, Philip. A Plan of Cumberland Harbour on ye So. Side of Cuba formerly call’d Walltenam Bay most humbly Dedicated to his Royal Highness William Augustus Duke of Cumberland &c. &c. &c. Paul Fourdrinier Sr. Separate publication, London, 6th November 1741.

Philip Durell was an important surveyor in the British Royal Navy, a Lieutenant at the time of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, but finishing his career as an admiral. Durell served aboard Sir Edward Vernon’s fleet during that admiral’s campaign against the Spanish in the West Indies and littoral of Spanish South and Central America.

As a talented surveyor, and eye-witness to the main battles and sieges of the campaign, Durell’s many charts and plans are an important record of these events, and were eagerly published by the leading London cartographic publishing-houses to entertain and inform the domestic market anxious for news of the campaign.

This fine plan is of Cumberland Bay on the south coast of Cuba, named in honour of the dedicatee, with regard to what the Spanish possessors might ref: 81863 £4,000

After his failure to capture Cartagena, Vernon landed at ‘Cumberland Bay’ with the intention of attacking Santiago de Cuba and subduing the whole island. However, it soon became apparent that the plan was doomed to failure, and the British sailed away. Evidently, while based there, Durell carried out the survey, and assigned English names to the landmarks - notably ‘Durell’s Cove’, a particular foible of his - but these names lasted only as long as the British took to sail over the horizon.

Of grEAT rAriTY, presumably because the expedition it depicts was a failure. The British Library has an original manuscript version of this map, as well as this printed version, but they are the only British institutional examples listed on COPAC, with no example in the National Maritime Museum or Library of Congress, for example.

The imprint notes that the map could be purchased for 1s. black and white or 2s. coloured.

Engraved map, once preserved by being folded to pocket format. Dimensions: widest: 471 by 574mm.

39 [PRAGUE] - A Collection of Manuscript Plans and Maps. 1742.

SUPErB grOUP Of MAnUSCriPT PLAnS Of PrAgUE, MOST UnUSUAL, in ExCELLEnT COndiTiOn And wiTh finE AriSTOCrATiC PrOVEnAnCE. SOME Of rEMArkABLE SizE.

Kept in the Luynes family since their creation, these maps and plans illustrate the siege of Prague by the Austrians in 1742, and the consequent retreat of the French troops from that city to Egra/Cherb.

The French had taken and occupied Prague as part of the Bavarian and Bohemian campaign of the War of Austrian Succession. The 1742 siege of Prague was an extended blockade of the city after French forces captured it in November 1741. French forces first under the command of de Broglie were surrounded by a large Austrian army in June 1742. A French relief column forced the Austrians to partially lift the siege in September, at which time de Broglie escaped from the besieged city, leaving it under the command of Belle-Isle. When the Austrians renewed the siege after halting the advance of the French relief, conditions in the city became quite difficult, but the Austrians failed to maintain a tight cordon around the city.

On 16 December, Belle-Isle led 14,000 troops out of the city on a ten-day march to the French-held city of

Egra (also called Cheb). In wintry conditions, Belle-Isle succeeded in fending off Austrian scouting parties until the army reached the Bohemian Forest four days later. The Austrian command did not learn of the French departure until 18 December, but believed they had successfully cut off all the routes of escape when Belle-Isle boldly led his army off the road and into the mountains. After a difficult crossing in which weather and disease took a marked toll on the French army, they reached Cheb on 9th March.

Not only military and technical, the plans are also much decorative. They mostly show Prague itself, with the surrounding fortifications and army positions. Various colours are used to show trenches, redoubts, batteries and army compositions. Their size varies, from a tiny 19 by 17 cm to a large 81 by 102 cm; especially noteworthy is the impressive 2.3 meter-long map of the Route taken by Belle-Isle from Prague to Egra.

A list of the maps is available upon request.

Provenance: From the Library of the Dukes of Luynes.

Thirteen manuscript hand-coloured plans with watercolour, all dissected in sections and laid on contemporary coloured linen, various sizes.

£12,000

BOWLES, John.

A New and Correct Map of the World Laid down agreable to late Observations and Discoveries Shewing the Principal Divions of the Earth & Waters […] &c. &c.

Printed For John Bowles At The Black Horse In Cornhill, London,

1744.

A finE SUMMArY Of EngLiSh CArTOgrAPhiC knOwLEdgE AT ThE EdgE Of ThE Mid-18Th CEnTUrY: OnE Of ThE LArgEST And MOST iMPOrTAnT MAPS ThAT BOwLES PrOdUCEd, And AMOng ThE rArEST The only other example located is in the British Library.

John Bowles, member of the leading family of printsellers, is best known as a publisher of prints and, with his brother, Thomas (II) as an acquirer and re-user of old printing plates, but he also had a relatively small output of “new” maps which are among the most interesting and important productions of the period; most of these were sold separately, which accounts for their rarity today.

In the eighteenth century, British map publishers developed an important sequence of two-sheet double hemisphere world maps for sale to their customers, marketed as containing the latest scientific data, notably by inserting detailed panels of texts or technical insets, appealing to the cultural and social pretensions of the buyers who would display these maps in their houses or offices and bask in the reflected credit of having the most up-to-date maps in their possession.

One of the finest, and among the rarest, maps in this sequence was published by John Bowles in 1744. The borders around the map are literally crammed with insets and lengthy explanatory texts, which combine to make the map a pictorial and textual encyclopaedia of contemporary geographical knowledge and among the most striking map images of the day.

He advertised it as ‘A New map of the World, laid down agreeable to late observations and discoveries, shewing the principal divisions of the earth and waters, also describing the monsoon or tradewinds, and the variation of the loadstone. To render this map more useful and entertaining, it contains a geographical description of the terrestrial globe, explaining the lines and circles which geographers drawn thereon, and the terms used in geography. Also the three systems of the World, and several tables shewing the motions, magnitudes, and distances, &c. of the planets; the proportions of the several parts of the earth, and schemes to explain the increase and decrease of day and night, the changes of the seasons, &c. &c.’ As such, this large map depicts the world as known on the eve of the Seven Years’ War, which established Britain as the pre-eminent colonial power, and on the eve of the great period of British marine exploration in the last decades of the eighteenth century, which transformed European knowledge of the wider world.

Typical of the family is the way Bowles’ imprint also serves as a brief catalogue of related items from stock.

Large engraved map on two sheets joined, original hand-colour in outline, advertisements, diagrams and explanations to borders. Dimensions: 61 x 97 cm (24 by 38.25 inches).

BLMC Maps Maps * 920.(366.); Armitage & Baynton-Williams: World at their Fingertips, 18.1 (this example illustrated); Worms & BayntonWilliams: British Map Engravers: Bowles, John.

ref: 82626

£14,000

GAYET. Plan des Attaques de la Ville de Bruxelles ou la Tranchée sud ouverte la nuit du 7. au 8. Février et qui s’est rendue le 19. Du meme mois de l’Anneé 1746. 1746.

LArgE PLAn Of ThE SiEgE Of BrUSSELS in 1746, BEAUTifULLY drAwn in BrighT wATErCOLOUr

41 The governor of the Austrian Netherlands, Count Kaunitz, was forced to withdraw his administration north to Antwerp. The siege severely damaged his view of Austria’s allies, principally Britain and the Dutch Republic, who he considered had done virtually nothing to protect Brussels from the French. A decade later Kaunitz would be one of the architects of the Franco-Austrian Alliance in which Austria abandoned its former alliance with Britain and joined with its traditional enemy France.

The plan renders the city and the surrounding area in great detail, depicting rivers, canals, fortifications, field boundaries, street, gardens, and principal buildings. A key plan lists 113 buildings, gateways, and defensive points. To the left of the plan the French trenches are highlighted in yellow, with the range and direction of the artillery in red.

The Siege of Brussels took place between January and February 1746 during the War of the Austrian Succession. A French army under the overall command of Maurice de Saxe, in a bold and innovative winter campaign besieged and captured the city of Brussels, which was then the capital of the Austrian Netherlands, from its Austrian garrison.

The French were boosted by the fact that a large part of the Allied army was forced to return to Britain where a Jacobite Rising of 1745 had broken out and Bonnie Prince Charlie had won a stunning victory at the Battle of Prestonpans. This left very few troops to actively oppose the French forces. After the French made two breaches in the walls of Brussels, the Austrian defenders were compelled to surrender on 22 February in a siege that lasted just three weeks.

The French followed up the capture of Brussels by taking other key cities and fortresses in the Austrian Netherlands including Mons and Namur. Brussels remained under French occupation until it was returned to Austria by the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle along with the rest of the Austrian Netherlands, although it was January 1749 before the French finally evacuated the city.

Provenance: From the Library of the Dukes of Luynes, Chateau de Dampierre, France.

Manuscript plan with fine original hand-colour, dissected and mounted on linen, key below title and plan. 83 by 50 cm. Scale: (approx.) 15cm to 1km.

ref: 90114 £10,000

42 OETTINGER, Johann Friedrich. Theatrum Belli Serenissimæ Domus Austriacæ, contra Gallos,... seu Tabula Geographica Cursus Rheni... cum Regionibus cis Rhenanis,... Neuester Schauplaz des Krieges an dem Ober Rhein und in denen Niederlanden. Oder Lauff des Rheins...

Matthaeus Seutter, Augsburg, [c.1746].

A LArgE wALL MAP Of ThE ThEATrE Of wAr in ThE rhinE VALLEY, riChLY dECOrATEd, CriSPLY PrinTEd On SiLk And BEAUTifULLY COLOUrEd BY A COnTEMPOrArY hAnd

It was produced during the War of the Spanish Succession (1740-48). The title notes the war in the Low Countries, so the map was most likely produced in the period 1745 to 1747, when the war expanded into that region (the Latin title notes that Seutter was geographer to the late Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, who died in 1740). At a scale of about 1:405,000, the map covers the Rhine River from the SwissGerman border about 50 km. west of its source at Lake Constance (the Bodensee) to its mouths at the North Sea in South Holland, and includes northwest Switzerland, midwest and southwest Germany, northeast France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the southern part of Netherlands, stopping just south of Amsterdam. The map shows political boundaries, the fortifications of the cities, topographic features, woods, and sand banks.

Johann Friedrich Oettinger (active 1737-65), military engineer to King Christian VI and/or King Frederick V of Denmark and Norway, published several military maps. The present example was published by Seutter (1678-1756) and engraved by his son-in-law Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717-77). Matthaeus Seutter came from an Augsburg family of goldsmiths and gold workers, including his father and grandfather of the same name. It is tempting to think the map might have been coloured by Bartholomaeus Seutter (16781754), an Augsburg faience painter, silk dyer, engraver, and also, supposedly, a goldsmith, who worked out of his own house and may have been Matthaeus’s cousin. In the 1730s and 1740s Bartholomaeus worked on plates for J.H. Weinmann’s botanical works, published in Regensburg and Amsterdam, the latter famously printed in colour.

A flap of silk has been left on the reverse and given a manuscript title in a contemporary hand (probably to identify the map when folded): ‘C. a. q. Theatrum belli domus Austriacæ contra Gallos seu Cursus Rheni.’ ref: 79135 £15,000

Provenance: The Royal House of Wittelsbach.

Engraved wall map with fine contemporary hand-colour, printed on silk from six large copper plates (each plate measuring about 57 by 29cm.), Latin title in a large decorative cartouche above left (with two figures representing river gods) and the German title in another below left, both with baroque decorations, flags and military attributes, a further cartouche bears a large decorated compass rose above right (the map is oriented with north to the right), two scales below the German title cartouche and scales of latitude and longitude in the border. Dimensions: 114 x 165cm. Seifert, ‘Die Karte als Kunstwerk’; Tooley, p. 471; IKAR (three copies, all apparently on paper).

43 [ITALY-SOUTH OF FRANCE] - Plan des Retranchements des Ennemis sur la Royale le 28 octobre 1747 [Together with:] Plan de la Premiere et de la Seconde Enceinte de la Ville de Genes. [1746] - 1747.

Two detailed, rather large manuscript plans during the War of Austrian Succession: one of the siege of Ventimiglia, on October 28th, 1747, the other of Genoa’s fortifications during the siege of 1746. They are both remarkable for their degree of precision and the information brought by the keys. The first shows a general map of the area, with the relief in great details, the armies clearly marked and three British warships anchored off the coast. The second plan, due to Gayet, exposes Genoa’s fortifications with much explanation. They resisted to an Allied siege led by Austrians, Sardinian soldiers and British sailors.

Provenance: From the Library of the Dukes of Luynes.

Manuscript ref: 90044,90060 £4,000

Sizes: 55.6 x 76.6 cm and 58 x 48.9 cm.