Carte reduite du Detroit de Davids. Faite au Depost des Cartes Plans et Journaux de la Marine

Title

Carte reduite du Detroit de Davids. Faite au Depost des Cartes Plans et Journaux de la Marine

Description

Map shows the southern coast of Greenland with Disko Island, the northern coast of Canada's Baffin Island, the Davis Strait and two magnificent cartouches.

dated 1765

Artist

Bellin (1703-1772)

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 Paris -1772 Versailles) was a French cartographer, engineer-geographer, marine hydrographer. As a contributor to the Encyclopédie, he wrote more than a thousand articles on maritime topics. As a cartographer, Bellin distinguished himself primarily in the field of sea cartography. From 1721 he worked for the Dépot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine, from 1741 until his death as an engineer-hydrograph of the Navy. In 1753 his atlas Neptune français, which covered all the coasts of France, was published, and in 1756 the hydrography françoise covering all seas of the earth. In 1764 the five-volume Petit Atlas maritime was published, which Bellin prepared on the orders of the Minister of the Navy, Choiseul. In addition, he wrote a number of geographical works and with Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre la geographie (1769) a geographic textbook for teaching. His maps illustrated, among other things, Bougainville's work Voyage autour du monde, published in 1771. As a co-author of the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, Bellin wrote more than a thousand articles in the field of shipping and navy.

Historical Description

Greenland is the largest island in the world and is geologically part of the Arctic North America. From a political point of view, it is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Around 875, the Norwegian Gunnbjørn discovered the island and named it Gunnbjørnland. In 982 Erik the Red had to flee Iceland and finally ended up in southwest Greenland. He gave the island its name Grænland. The Vikings who settled in Greenland were therefore called Grænlendingar. Around 1124 to 1126 Greenland became its own diocese, the bishopric of which was in Gardar, today's Igaliku, with the cathedral of Garðar. In 1350, the Icelandic churchman Ivar Bardarsson reported that the western settlement had been abandoned. A Swedish-Norwegian expedition under Paul Knudson (1355-1364) found no more Grænlendingar there. The last written record of the Northmen from the eastern settlement is from 1408, telling of a wedding in the church of Hvalsey. Contacts with Norway and Iceland broke off. After Europe lost contact with the settlers on Greenland in 1408, the island received little attention for 300 years due to its inhospitable nature. The English navigator John Davis landed in 1585, looking for the Northwest Passage, as the first new discoverer of Greenland, which he called the Land of Desolation, near present-day Nuuk. He circumnavigated the southern tip of the island and gave Cape Farvel its name. Under Christian IV there were three expeditions to Greenland in 1605, 1606 and 1607. In the first, helmsman James Hall, who had probably also driven with John Davis, recommended the new route taken by John Davis between the Orkney and Shetland Islands. In 1721 Greenland was taken over by the Norwegian Hans Egede for Denmark-Norway. In the Peace of Kiel in 1814, the Danish-Norwegian personal union was dissolved, Greenland fell to Denmark, but with the entry into force of the new Danish constitution on June 5, 1953, Greenland was no longer a colony.