English Channel Map 1690 Sea Chart Print - Plymouth, Portsmouth, Le Havre, Brest, Calais

Theodorus Danckerts, a member of the well-known Danckerts family of engravers and publishers in Amsterdam, issued this chart of the English Channel around 1690, titled Novissima et Accuratissima Canalis Angliae et Galliae Tabula cum Omnibus Suis Portibus Arenis et Profundis. The copper-engraved sheet is laid out like a mariner's chart, with two elaborate compass roses, a network of rhumb lines across the water, dense coastal names and soundings, and political regions in outline hand color. A large allegorical cartouche at lower right carries the title and the Danckerts imprint, and the bold engraving and updated coastal names drawn from Dutch hydrographic sources show the family's large-format style. It shows the Channel in 1690, the year of the naval battle off Beachy Head during the Nine Years' War.

The chart covers the Channel from Cornwall and South Wales across to Brittany, Normandy and Flanders, reaching north to the Thames estuary and south to the Loire basin. Plymouth, Portsmouth, the Solent and the Isle of Wight, the Downs, Calais, Dieppe, Le Havre, St-Malo and Brest are labeled as principal harbors, and the Scilly Isles and the Channel Islands are named. This was the route along which English and French fleets fought, with the battles of Beachy Head in 1690 and Barfleur and La Hougue in 1692. Dutch publishers such as Danckerts made charts like this for the merchants and shipping families who followed the war closely. The result is a view of the Channel as a stage of both trade and conflict.

A sailor, a family with roots in Brittany, Normandy or Cornwall, or a collector of maritime charts will find a seafaring gift here, and the chart suits a study or a home by the sea. TheMapVault's other France sheets show the land in provinces, departments or relief, whereas this 1690 Dutch chart shows the sea between France and England, with soundings and compass roses rather than towns. Its decorative style, with outline color and an allegorical cartouche, belongs to the Amsterdam school that also produced the 1622 Hondius map of France in the collection. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.