A rare and magnificent 18th century portolan chart of the Portuguese Empire

Vianna, Manoel José. Manuscript portolan chart of the Atlantic Ocean, including Western Europe, South America, and West Africa.

€ 135,000.00

A very unusual and highly decorative 18th century Portuguese manuscript chart, showing the Portuguese Empire on both sides of the Atlantic: Colonial Brazil on the left hand, with Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande (do Sul), and Rio da Prata (Rio de la Plata) prominently marked and a large number of coastal cities in between; and western Europe with the Iberian Peninsula and the western coast of Africa on the right.

Although already archaic in its concept at the time of its creation, this chart is a statement of Portuguese interests in the world, particularly in Brazil. The draughtsmanship is skilled and accomplished, and the chart was probably commissioned by a prominent trader or noble family. Although the practice of drawing up sea charts on vellum had almost ceased by the 18th century, as printed atlases took their place, there were a number of map-makers still working on vellum charts in this field in Spain and Portugal. The Luso-Hispanic map collection in the Library of Congress includes several 18th-century portolans on vellum, notably an Atlantic chart similar to the present one, from the early 18th century by Ferrera Manoel, and another of the Atlantic dated 1633 by Roiz (cf. Nautical Charts on Vellum in the Library of Congress, 1977). All such charts are very rare, and this example by Vianna is particularly attractive.

First produced in the Middle Ages, sea charts or portolans were originally intended purely for purposes of navigation and hence show highly detailed coastlines but little if any interior information. They also have a network of "rhumb lines" that form a lattice across the map's surface, corresponding to directions of the compass. Although portolan charts were ostensibly practical tools, even by the 16th century they were frequently adorned with calligraphic flourishes, compass roses, exotic animals, and even religious figures. This striking example is relatively restrained and elegant, with beautiful fleurs-de-lis patterns, compass roses, and the flags of Portugal and Spain, demonstrating that these works did not dispense with political and geographical information but rather aestheticized it. The deliberately backward-looking style might reflect nostalgia for the a bygone era, when Portugal's colonial empire was considerably more stable. By 1786, when Vianna drew this map, Portugal was no longer a world power; its income from the American colonies had considerably diminished, and Portugal had begun a slow but inexorable decline that would last until the 20th century. Indeed, just a few decades after this map was made, in 1822, Brazil would declare its independence from Portugal, which contributed to a period of political chaos and civil war in the mother country.

A masterful example of draftsmanship continuing a noble cartographic tradition.