A finely engraved sea chart of the waters of the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay and the Spanish peninsula extending eastwards to Toulon in southern France. It is from Jacques Nicolas Bellin’s greatest atlas, the ‘Petit Atlas Maritime’. Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was one of the most important and prolific French cartographers of the mid-eighteenth century. The Dépôt des Cartes et Plans was founded in 1720 and the following year Bellin began working for them as the first Ingenieur Hydrographe de la Marine and became Royal Hydrographer. With access to the latest navigational reports, he produced a great many maps and charts of excellent quality compiling atlases of sailing charts for military and official use as well as for commercial publication. This chart is from arguably his greatest atlas, the ‘Petit Atlas Maritime’ published in 1564. Phillips (1909-) nos. 638 & 3508; Shirley (2004) M. Bell 5a; Nordenskiold Collection (1979) 1; Sanderson (1971) no. 211.