Portolan chart Carte Particulieres de la Mer Mediterannée

Portolan chart Carte Particulieres de la Mer Mediterannée [sic]. Faict A Marseille par Bremond, 1663. Manuscript portolan chart in pen and ink and watercolour heightened in gold, on single sheet of vellum (54 x 78.5cm), showing the Mediterranean from Portugal in the west to the Levantine seaboard in the east, names of coastal settlements written perpendicular to coastline, rivers and deltas also included, 13 compass roses each with projecting rhumb lines, several with flourishes incorporating mascarons and foliate decoration, decorative title cartouche lower left with allegorical figures either side, decorative unnumbered scale bar lower right, captions 'Europa' and 'Grecia' within strapwork cartouches (the latter incorporating mascaron), inset view of Marseilles upper left, Habsburg coat of arms within Spanish landmass, vignette of a man-of-war in the Atlantic (adjacent to the straits of Gibraltar), vignettes of Islamic rulers in turbans and robes within the landmasses of Africa, Turkey and Egypt, those for Turkey and Egypt each with adjacent vignette of fanciful coat of arms incorporating crescent surmounted by a crown, vignette of Jerusalem cityscape and the three crosses of Calvary at a right angle to right-hand border, Red Sea picked out in red, broad red and green border around all sides Qty: (1) Note: The Bremond family were a dynasty of cartographers active in Marseille in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The family member responsible for this example is likely to be Estienne: the Huntington Library holds a portolan chart of the Aegean Sea which bears the signature 'Facit a Marseille par Estienne Bremond, 1655' (mssHM 31); the University of Cambridge holds a similar chart, depicting the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, signed only with the initials 'E B' but now attributed to Estienne and dated to c.1650 (Maps.Ms.Plans.697); it is thought to be the only portolan in their collections. One notable feature of the present example is that that the place-names are in large part not in the forms standard to any one major language and in some cases appear to show an Occitan influence, such as Gibarta for Gibraltar, and Antibou for Antibes, and Nisa for Nice. A descendant of Bremond, Laurent, published in the 1720s a collection of charts Recueil de plusieurs plans des ports et rades de la mer Mediterranée, describing himself on the title-page as 'Hydrographe du Roy et de la Ville'. Provenance: Paxton House, Berwickshire, Scotland.