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An early edition of this striking sea chart,which charts one of the most important trade routes of the 15th and 16th Centuries.
The map appeared in a number of clearly distinguishable formats over the years. The present example includes Samuel Thornton's name in the cartouche. The map was revised several times, most notably wih the addition os a new cartouche in the second part of the 18th Century. The present example is a fine early impression and includes the full map title in the cartouche, including the attribution to Samuel Thornton at the Signe of the Plat in the Minories, which was removed in later editions.
Later editions of the chart appeared in The English Pilot, The Third Book., first published in the late 17tth Century and later published by Mount & Page for more than 100 years.
John Thornton was a respected and prominent chartmaker in London in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He was one of the final members of the Thames School of chartmakers and served as the hydrographer to the Hudson's Bay Company and the East India Company. He produced a large variety of printed charts, maps, and atlases in his career, but he was also a renowned manuscript chart maker. Born in London in 1641, he was apprenticed in the Drapers Company to a chartmaker, John Burston. After being made free of the company (1665), he was part of the combine that took over John Seller’ English Pilot in 1677. Thornton was trusted by the naval and navigational establishment of the day; one of his clients was Samuel Pepys, naval administrator and diarist. Thornton died in 1708, leaving his stock to his son, Samuel, who carried on the business.
Samuel, born in ca. 1665, also had apprenticed in the Drapers Company and was made free a year after his father’s death. He continued the business until 1715, when he died. His stock then passed to Richard Mount and Thomas Page.
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