Maritime Europe 1583 - Vintage Poster
The rare first plate of Waghenaer's general Sea Chart of Europe.
 
The very expert engraving work of Joannes Doetecum is much captured on this map. He was born into a family of printmakers from Deventer, in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel. This map is of the rare first plate of Waghenaer's general Sea Chart of Europe, published by Waghenaer in 1583.
 
The chart covers the majority Europe, the British Isles, Iceland, the western Mediterranean, and much of North Africa and the Western Atlantic and is the earliest obtainable printed sea chart of Europe.
 
Included is the mythical “Island of Brazil”, elegantly decorated with compass roses, sea monsters, sailing ships, coats of arms and rhumb lines (imaginary lines on the earth's surface cutting all meridians at the same angle, were used as the standard method of plotting a ship's course on a chart). Waghenaer was a prominent person who helped facilitate the early development of Nautical Chart Making in Netherlands.  He sailed extensively over 25 years and made possible the navigational charts that became famous all over the world. Spiegel der Zeevardt or the Mirror of the Sea, his collection of charts were sophisticated for their time and we celebrate today his fantastically elaborate Charts and marvel of a time not all that long ago.