A superb sea chart of the south coast of England from Plymouth in Devon to Dorcester in Dorset. It displays Derthmouth (Dartmouth), Excester (Exeter), and Weijmouth. The coastline is filled with indications of farming including several fields of crops. Two large cartouche decorate the chart along with a sea monster, two ships, and an ornate compass rose complete with several named directions. It is the first printed chart of the area and was first published in the first part of the ‘Spieghel der Zeevaerdt’. Here with Dutch text on the verso with the plate number ’21’ added lower left and letters added to the coastal profiles above. This indicates it is the fourth state of five according to Nalis.

Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer (c.1553-1606) who was one of many Dutchmen who sailed the trading waters from Holland as far afield as Spain and the Baltic Sea. The expanding trading activity of the Netherlands created a demand for more accurate charts of the coastlines. Waghenaer retired from the sea in 1579 at which point he was already engaged in cartography. In 1577 he produced a plan of his hometown of Enkuizen, West Frisia. He began production of a series of charts using the knowledge he had gained from sea-fairing. Part one of the ‘Spieghel der Zeevaerdt’ was printed at the recently founded Plantijn Press in Leiden and published to critical acclaim in December 1583. The task of engraving the plates was given to one of the finest engravers of the time, Joannes van Doetecum (d.1605). The work covered the coastline of western Europe from Amsterdam to Cadiz and the south and southeast coasts of England, in 22 charts accompanied by a general chart of western Europe. It was a landmark in western European navigation offering the first modern published sea charts. Tony Campbell states ‘When Waghenaer published his ‘Spieghel der Zeevaerdt’ in 1583-84, he was breaking new ground in several ways. Nobody before had combined in one volume the charts, coastal profiles and sailing directions that any captain not navigating entirely from memory, or luck, would have required’. A second part published in 1585 included the waters of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Provenance: private English collection. Campbell (1981); Koeman (1967-70) IV p. 474 no. 21c; Nalis (1998) ‘New Hollstein’ 814.4; Schilder (2003) MCN VII pp. 47-75; Schilder & van Egmond (2007) 1392-96.