Tractus Littorales Guinea a Promontorio Verde usque ad Sinum Catenbelae

Original copperplate printed map
Original Color to Map & Modern Color to Cartouche 
490 x 566 mm
Map # AF-495
$ Sold
 

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An attractive, highly decorative sea chart of the west coast of Africa from Gambia to Angola.  This sea chart is the "middle" chart of the west coast of Africa; De wit prepared sea charts of the north Africa coast (Barbariae…) and of the area south around the Cape of Good Hope (Cimbebas et Caffariæ….).

This chart centers on Guinea and extends from the Congo and Angola  north including the Gold, Ivory, and Grain coast up to and beyond Gambia and Senegal.  The decorative title cartouche shows Europeans engaged in commerce with Africans and North Africans.  One European is using scales.  Three Africans appear to be bound as slaves.  Numerous, strange looking lizards and other animals are in the foreground.  Three ships sail in the ocean. 

This sea chart is made from the same copperplate as Frederick De Wit's seachart.   The only difference is that the imprint below the title is changed to "Apud R. & I. Ottens".   Renard obtained De Wit's plates in the early 1700s and then the Ottens brothers Reiner (1698-1750) and Joshua (1704-65) obtained this copperplate and reissued the seachart in c.1739-45.

Reference:  Norwich Map # 253.

Fine Condition overall with a little fraying to outer left margin.