J-B d’Après de Mannevillette Plan du Cap de Bonne Esperance et de ses Environs. This landmark

This landmark nautical of the Cape of Good Hope is the first to be based on sound astronomical measurements.  It's publication was arguably the beginning of scientific hydrography of the Cape of Good Hope. The chart is presented uncoloured, as issued.           

The chart was published by Jean-Baptiste d’Après de Mannevillette, the famous hydrographer, ship’s captain in the French East India Company, navigator and author.  D’Après de Mannevillette is best known for his atlas of sea charts and his book of navigation, collectively known as Le Neptune Oriental (Jean-Baptiste Après de Mannevillette. Le Neptune Oriental: dedié au Roi and  Instruction Sur La Navigation Des Indes Orientales Et De La Chine, Pour Servir Au Neptune Oriental: dedié au Roi. (Paris: Demonville; Brest: Malassis, 1775). Le Neptune Oriental first was published in 1745, an edition that did not include this map. Guillaume de la Haye, the engraver was highly regarded and, at the time of engraving, worked for the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine (Le Dépôt de la Marine).  

The map relies for all non-hydrographic features on the small map of the Cape of Good Hope by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, the French astronomer who came to the Cape to chart the southern skies. On completing that task, Lacaille then set about determining the shape of the southern hemisphere. In presenting his findings to the Royal Academy of Science in France, he published a small map of the Cape that displayed the lines of his geometric method (‘Levé géométriquement en 1752’). 

  D’Après de Mannevillette sea chart is a larger version of Lacaille’s map, without the triangles but, as one would expect in a sea chart by an accomplished hydrographer, with rhumb lines, a compass rose ocean depths and identification of rocky shores. All the place names on the chart are taken from Lacaille. Mannevillette partially corrected Lacaille's the too northerly location of Hanglip (now Hangklip), the southern-eastern cape at the Mannevilette's chart.  

This attractive sea chart is a crisp imprint on firm, counter-marked paper and in fine condition is testimony to Mannevillette’s refreshing scientific approach to hydrography and a chart that signalled the beginning of accurate depiction of the Cape coastline and waters. 

References: Tooley p.7; Norwich map #276

Roger Stewart. The Three states of Mannevillette’s Chart of the Cape of Good Hope