Carte de la Mer Baltique contenant les bancs, isles et costes….

Title

Carte de la Mer Baltique contenant les bancs, isles et costes….

Description

Map shows the total East Sea with the coasts of Sweden, Finnland, Russia, Estland, Lettland,Lithuania and Poland.

dated 1693

Artist

Mortier (1661-1711)

Pieter Mortier (1661–1711) was an 18th-century mapmaker and engraver from the Northern Netherlands. Mortier had a partnership with Johannes Covens I (1697-1774) and founded the map publishing company Covens & Mortier (1721-1866). Mortier, being French himself, had easy access to French cartographers such as De L'Isle, Sanson, Jaillot, de Fer and De Wit. Consequently, much of Mortier's business was built upon leveraging the sophisticated Dutch printing establishment to issue embellished high quality editions of previously contemporary French maps. In the greater context of global cartography, this was a significant advantage as most Dutch map publishes had, at this point, fallen into the miasma of reprinting their own outdated works. By contrast, the cartographers of France were producing the most accurate and up to date charts anywhere. Mortier's cartographic work culminated in the magnificent nautical atlas, Le Neptune Francois. Upon Pierre's death in 1711 this business was inherited by his widow. In 1721 his son Cornelius Mortier took over the day to day operation of the firm. Cornelius partnered with his brother-in-law Jean Covens to form one of history's great cartographic partnerships - Covens and Mortier - which continued to publish maps and atlases until about 1866.

Historical Description

The Baltic Sea, internationally known as the Baltic Sea (v Mare Balticum), is an inland sea of the Atlantic Ocean in Europe and, unlike the North Sea, is not a marginal sea of this ocean. It is predominantly a brackish sea, whereby a higher salt and oxygen content can be observed in the western Baltic Sea due to the water exchange with the Atlantic and North Sea. The countries bordering the Baltic Sea are Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Historically, the border ran through the Belt Sea, as the Kingdom of Denmark levied the Sund toll at the entrances to the Baltic Sea. The toll station in the Öresund was Kronborg Castle near Helsingør. In the Great Belt, it was collected at Nyborg. For the Little Belt, the Sundzoll was called the Stromzoll or Beltzoll and was levied there since the founding of the fortress of Fredericia in 1650.