Jean Rene Antoine Verdun de la Crenne (1741 – 1808)
served as Officer for the French „Depot de la Marine“. The Depot itself began as the central deposit of charts for the French Navy. In 1720, the Navy consolidated its collection with those government materials covering the colonies, creating a single large repository of navigation. By 1737, the Depot was developing its own original charts and 1750 it participated in scientific expeditions. In 1773, die Depot received a monopoly over the composition, production, and distribution of navigational materials, solidifying their place as the main producer of geographic knowledge in France. The Depot continued until 1886 when it became the „Naval Hydrographic Service“.
In the years 1771- 1772 the French Government send a scientific expedition to the North Atlantic, led by Verdun de la Crenne. He was accompanied by astronomer Alexandre Pingre, mathematician Jean-Charles Borde and painter Pierre Ozanne. Their commission was to explore the ocean, the coasts and the islands on their route. They were to connect errors on existing charts and test various ways of measuring latitude and longitude. As they only spent three weeks in a rather small area in the Westfjords of Iceland results of this expedition were dubious but they became the basis for the representation of Iceland on this chart of the North Atlantic which in general is much less accurate than those already in existence.
Map Details
This finely engraved and detailed sea-chart of the North Atlantic and the North Sea extends from the coasts of Newfoundland („Terra Nova“), Labrador („Nova Francia“) and Baffin Island („Isle James“) in the west to the coastline of Norway and Sweden, including most of Greenland, Iceland, Great Britain, Denmark and to the northern parts of France and Germany. The title cartouche is to be found within a frame in Greenland, mentioning also Verdun de la Crenne‘s voyage, the year 1776 and underneath the name of Petit, the engraver.
On the left in the center of the map there is a warning („Avertissement“) concerning the wind. A table in the right-hand side margin lists the major locations with their longitude and latitude. In the chart a very precise technique was used by which only those coastlines definitely known are fully shaded, those inaccessible due to ice or unchartered are sketchily defined. The map is decorated with fleur-de-lis and three fine galleons. Rhumb lines radiate from eight compass roses. The trademark of the Depot de la Marine is to be seen in the bottom right corner.
Was bedeutet der senkrechte Strich in der Mitte? NOCH BEARBEITEN
Iceland itself looks strange, as if east and west pressed together, with the north gone up and the south down, the country having lost about half of its area. In the interior „I. D’Islande“ is printed. Some mountains including a spouting volcano in the south (not named but surely Hekla) are depicted and there are only two place-names, the bishoprics Skalholt and Holar („Hola“). The Arctic Circle is nearly drawn correctly.
There is only one but clearly visible difference to the map No. 87 of Bellin and the map No. 43 of Verdun de la Crenne: the decoration with three fine galleons. Therefore I refer to my comments there with regard to the differences to the Verdun de la Crenne map (No. 43).