Gerard Van Keulen, Published circa 1725

Image Size: 23.5" x 20.5"

Condition: Very Good.  Minor restorations at lower corners, just affecting printed image, with a small amount of facsimile work.

Gerard Van Keulen's rare chart of the St-Lawrence, was first published in De Nieuwe Groote Lichtende Zee-Fakkel, Part IV, Amsterdam 1717.  What makes this rare map interesting is that although french officers and pilots prior to the establishment of the Dépot des carts et plans de la Marine in 1720 would usually used Dutch charts for navigational purposes, this chart is a rare example where the Dutch copied a French chart.  Jean Deshayes chart Carte marine de l’embouchure de la rivière de Saint-Laurent originally published in 1686 and re-issued in 1702 by Nicolas de Fer, entitled Carte de la Grand rivière de Canada appellée pas les Européens de St-Laurens,  is a landmark in the cartography of the region. Deshayes, the initial Hydrographer of New France, was the first to make a hydrographic survey of the St-Lawrence when he was sent by Jean Dominique Cassini of the Paris Observatory and the Académie Royale des Sciences, who’s mission was to observe an eclipse in 1685 and plot the longitude. In doing so, Deshayes was able to use not only information based on celestial observations to draw the first chart dedicated exclusively to the St-Lawrence, but a more accurate representation was made of the river and its perilous currents and shoals that could be used by French pilots to navigate and defend its commercial and strategic interests. (Sources: Septentrion, cote 2008-06-008, Trouvailles, Un fleuve périlleux, Dictionary of Canadina Biography, Vol. II, Withers, Charles J., Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason, The University of Chicago Press, 2007)