Pierre or Pieter Mortier (1661 – 1711)
was son of a French refugee and later became an important Dutch mapmaker, engraver and bookseller. In 1690 he was granted a privilege to publish maps and atlases by French publishers in Amsterdam for the Dutch market.
After his death, as his son Cornelis was underage, the business was continued by his widow Amelia until she died in 1719. In 1721 Cornelis Mortier (1699 – 1783) took over the management and partnered with Johannes Covens I. (1697 – 1866). They founded the company Covens & Mortier which became the largest cartographic and most important publishers in the 18th century. Some of their customers include the famous cartographers Nicolas Sanson, Alexis-Hubert Jaillot and Guillaume de l‘Isle.
Map Details
The special thing about this large and rare chart is that it consists of two sheets joined.
It was published in Pierre Mortier‘s issue of Jaillot‘s „Atlas Nouveau des Cartes Marines“, although it also appeared in Mortier‘s famous sea-atlas „Le Neptune Francois“.
Thus large sea chart shows the west coast of Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and the bays of Arctic America. It is equipped with compass roses and rhumb lines in the sea and two octagonal title text cartouches in the upper corners. The main one on the right with the title of the map and the author, the other one on the left with a reference to the Baffin Bay and Hudson Bay.
Of interest are the pair of channels traversing the tip of Greenland, the upper one called “Destroit de M. Vorbischer“ (Strait of Martin Frobisher)
The most notable addition is that of „Destroit D‘Anian“ in the lower left corner. According to Burden, it suggests a passage between Button’s Bay and the Strait of Anian, offering a hopeful passage to the Pacific Ocean via a remarkably southerly course.
The map of Iceland („Ysland“) contains a lot of place-names along the coastline but only three in the interior: the bishoprics Skalholt with church symbol, Holar („Halar“) without and the famous Hekla („Mont Hekla“) with an eruption.
The Arctic Circle („Cercle du Pole Arctique“) is drawn but runs a bit too south in Iceland.
Comments by the collector
I bought this map from Altea Antique Maps in London. Not only because of its unusualness and rarity but also of the text about the Zeno hoax of 1558, which put the mythical island of Frisland on most maps of the period.
„Martin Frobisher (1535-94) sailed across the Atlantic in 1576 to look for the North West Passage: he landed on Greenland but thought it to be the non-existent Frisland shown on his charts. When he sailed on and touched landheim thought he had arrived in Greenland when in fact he was what is now Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Entering the bay he believed he had discovered a straight on Greenland, and even two more voyages (1577 & 1578) did nothing to make him doubt himself. Over a century later this Chart was published with his mistake still included.
Frobisher did not have much luck: he also mistook iron pyrite for gold-bearing ore and a narwhal corpse for a unicorn. Fortunately his career as an English Privateer was mor successful and his service during the Spanish Armada of 1588 earned him a knighthood.“