A previously UNRECORDED PORTOLAN OF THE PERSIAN GULF. John Friend (c.1665-c.1720) was a member of the Drapers’ Company and noted chartmaker. Appenticed to Joel Gascoyne, he was made free in 1689 and became one of the ‘Thames School’ of chartmakers. This school largely operated in Wapping but Friend worked in Rotherhithe, unusually on the south bank of the Thames. The school were members of the Drapers’ Company which was one of the dozen or so great Livery Companies in London at the time. By now their wealth came from trade, hence the link with shipping and chartmakers. It has been stated that in 1624 only 6 percent of the members were traditional drapers.

The chart illustrates the harbours, towns, islands and soundings of the region. Illustrated with a fine pair of dividers and a half compass rose it is inscribed ‘Made by John Friend in East Lain Rederif [Rotherhithe] 1709’. Noted on the chart are the main European trading posts; ‘The Citty’ (Basra, English), ‘Congo’ (Kung, Portuguese) and ‘Gombaron’ (Bandar Abbas, English and Dutch). The chart shows Oman, Qatar and other local regions.

Only eighteen original charts have been identified by Friend, fifteen of which survive at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. One is located at the India Office, one at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and this example. Most are of specific regions in the Arabic world with the exception of one of Ceylon which is in the Bibliotheque Nationale. One of those at Chatsworth is also a chart of the Gulf, dated 1708 it is slightly smaller in size.

Campbell (1973) ‘The Drapers’ Company and its School of Seventeenth Century Chart-Makers’, in ‘My Head is a Map’, a Fetschrift for R.V.Tooley; Eden (1975) ‘Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Cartographers’; Smith (1978) ‘Manuscript and Printed Sea Charts in Seventeenth-Century London: The Case of the Thames School’, in ‘The Compleat Plattmaker’ pp. 45-100; Wallis & Cumming (1971) ‘Charts by John Friend preserved at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England’, in ‘Imago Mundo’ 25 p. 81.