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Description

Rare early English Sea Chart of the Eastern Mediterranean, published by John Seller, one of the earliest maps of the Mediterranean published in England.

The map extends from Cyprus, Asia Minor and the Holy Land in the East to Italy, Sicily and Malta in the West.

The map almost certainly appeared in the earliest editions of Seller's Atlas Maritimus, but was apparently quickly replaced by more detailed charts, making this an exceptional rarity on the market.

The present example would seem to be the second state of the map, preceded by a state which credits Seller, John Colson, William Fisher, James Atkinson and John Thornton as the mapmakers, but does not refer to Seller as "Hydrographer to the King."

John Seller (1630-1697) was the most important English mapmaker of his time and a pioneer of modern mapmaking in variety of disciplines. In the early 1670s, he set about to break the near-monopoly enjoyed by the Dutch in sea chart publication. His production of the Atlas Maritimus or a Book of Charts Describeing the Sea Coasts . . . of the World (1675), marked a watershed moment in the development of hydrography in Britain. He concurrently worked on the first parts of The English Pilot, including the charts of the Northern and Southern navigation, however financial constraints prevented him from completing the project. This endeavor was subsequently taken up by John Thornton, and later the firm of Mount & Page, who resolutely gave London a leading place in the sea chart trade.

Condition Description
Minor repair at lower centerfold an some minor marginal soiling.
John Seller Biography

John Seller was one of the most notable map and instrument makers in England in the late-seventeenth century. He was especially known for the sea charts, many of which featured in his influential English Pilot and Atlas Maritimus. Seller was born in London in 1632. His father was a cordwainer and John was apprenticed to Edward Lowe, of the Merchant Taylors’ Company. He was made free of that company in 1654. Later, he also was made a brother of the Clockmakers’ Company, which housed several instrument makers. He started business as a compass maker but expanded his offering to include navigational instruments and charts.

Seller’s career was halted temporarily, and fantastically, when he was tried for high treason in 1662. He was accused of involvement in a plot led by Thomas Tonge. While Seller likely only unwisely repeated rumors, he was convicted. The other conspirators, who did admit some degree of guilt, were executed, but Seller maintained his innocence and, via insistent petitions, he eventually secured his release from Newgate Prison.

This episode did not seem to slow Seller’s rise too much, however. Seller was granted a royal license to publish English-language maritime atlases. This gave him a near-monopoly and led to his being named hydrographer to the King in 1671. Although the point of the project was to produce English charts of Dutch dominance and bias, Seller ended up using many Dutch plates as his base material. The first volume of The English Pilot was published in 1671, followed by more volumes as well as The Coating Pilot (1672) and the Atlas Maritimus (1675). Seller was commercially successful, but some of his projects required further support. The English Pilot was eventually taken over by John Thornton and William Fisher, for example, and his proposed English atlas only produced maps of six counties.

Seller’s sons, John and Jeremiah, followed in their father’s profession. Seller also apprenticed several promising young men, including Charles Price, with whom his sons partnered. Through Price, Seller can be seen as the founding figure of an important group of London mapmakers that included Price, John Senex, Emanuel Bowen, Thomas Kitchin, and Thomas Jefferys.