North Sea – Herman Moll, ca. 1735

“A Chart of Part of the Sea Coast of England, Holland and Flanders.” Copper engraving by Herman Moll, ca. 1735, based on the surveys of Captain Greenvile Collins. Coloured by a later hand. Size (plate): ca. 21 × 29 cm (frame: 45 × 51 cm).

This sea chart depicts the coasts of England, Holland, and Flanders, showing the principal navigation routes across the North Sea and the English Channel. Herman Moll drew upon the precise hydrographic surveys of Captain Greenvile Collins, producing a small navigation chart for sailors travelling between the ports of London, Harwich, Yarmouth, and Dover on one side, and Rotterdam, Vlissingen, Middelburg, Ostend, and Antwerp on the other.

The chart carefully records soundings, shoals, and sandbanks such as the Galloper Bank, the “Lemmon Sand” (modern Leman and Ower Banks), and the treacherous banks at the mouth of the Scheldt. The rhumb lines—the straight compass bearings radiating from a finely engraved compass rose—orient the map toward the north.

Moll also notes four principal trade routes across the North Sea: from Dover to Calais, from the Thames estuary to Ostend, from Harwich to Hellevoetsluis, and from the Thames to Texel—each marked with its distance in English miles. These routes reflect the intense commercial traffic between England and the Dutch Republic in the mid-eighteenth century.

The map further includes annotations of notable historical events: near Rye (Sussex) it marks the landing of King George I in September 1714, when he arrived by ship from Holland to ascend the British throne. It also records that King William III landed from Holland at Yarmouth in November 1694—a reference to his return from the Dutch Republic during the Nine Years’ War—and notes the loss of the man-of-war Gloucester on the Leman Sand in 1682.

Price: SOLD