Unrecorded state of Doncker's chart - photo 1

Unrecorded state of Doncker's chart

Lot 13
16.10.2020 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 50 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 411420
Lot 13 | Unrecorded state of Doncker's chart
Estimate value
$ 50 000 – 80 000
[DONCKER, Hendrik (1626-1699).] West-Indische Paskaert. Amsterdam: Pieter Goos and Gerard van Keulen, [1704-1726].

Large chart printed on vellum, an unrecorded state of one of the most important charts for navigating to America and the Cape of Good Hope. This large chart, first published by Hendrik Doncker in 1659, is based on Blaeu’s seminal map of the Atlantic of 1630, which was the earliest printed chart of the Atlantic and one of the earliest to show North America on Mercator’s projection. So influential was Blaeu's chart during the 17th century that several derivatives are known, but despite its popularity, only a few examples of each of the recorded iterations survive—most likely due to the fact that the majority were used aboard ship and therefore rarely survived. No other copy of this state of Doncker's map is recorded in institutional holdings.

The Doncker chart follows the outline of Blaeu's, with several alterations. Stadten Landt near Terra del Fuego now bears a complete coastline following Hendrick Brouwer's voyage of 1642-43; there are also two new insets, one to the upper right, showing the far east of the Mediterranean and the Levant, and the other in Africa, featuring a chart of the British Isles. A second state of the chart is recorded in the French Maritime Archives and the National Maritime Museum and includes the addition of the line "Saxsonburgh opgedaen door Willem Schellinger anno 1669" in the lower right portion of the Atlantic. The chart was later acquired sometime between 1669 and 1675 by Pieter Goos, whose name appears on the present example. It is unclear why Doncker decided to sell the chart, but it is known that he worked closely with both Goos's son Hendrick and Caspar Lootsman after Goos's death in 1675; it is conceivable that Doncker might have co-published the chart with Goos at some point before 1675. The copper plates for the work would later be acquired in 1693 by Johannes van Keulen, the leading chart maker of his day, along with the rest of Doncker's stock. Van Keulen had also bought the plates to Blaeu's "West-Indische Paskaert" at some point before 1680. The present map bears the imprint of both Goos and van Keulen's son, Gerard, who took over the business when his father retired in 1704, and shows several alterations from the 1669 second state. Doncker's imprint has been erased from the title cartouche, and Van Keulen's imprint added to the cartouche in Africa.

Two engraved parallel lines cross the Atlantic from northwest to southwest all the way from the Cape Verde Islands down to the equator and are marked "A" to "E." This is the "karrespoor" or "wagenspoor," literally the "cart-track," which marked the boundaries of the safest route through the Atlantic, a route that all Dutch East India men were advised to follow when sailing to the Cape of Good Hope and the East Indies. If the ship sailed east of the "cart-track" (line A-C), then she risked becoming becalmed in the Gulf of Guinea, and if she ventured too far west, past line D-E, she would enter the windless seas off the coast of Brazil. A smaller line marked "F" and "G," which protrudes from the line D-E, marks the safe outward bound course (i.e., Europe to the Cape of Good Hope), with the ships following the coast of South America before heading east across the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope. Two legends appear in the sea off the west coast of France and Spain, respectively, providing information on hazardous reefs.

Engraved chart on vellum, 810 x 980mm. Some surface soiling and light staining, natural hole to vellum on left, corners thumbed with some abrasion to printed surface, mounting residue to verso edges. Provenance: Comte d'Aboville (docket dated 1900 on verso).
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01.10.2020 – 16.10.2020
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