DESCRIPTION: A small manuscript chart of the English Channel. Decorated at top with the crossed flags of England and France this hand-drawn and hand-colored chart of the British Channel could have been created in the latter half of the 19th century to early 20th century by a British naval student or maritime officer candidate or quite possibly a member of the Sea Cadets Corps or its predecessor, the Naval Lads' Brigade. A legend in English describes features that would be found on a nautical chart of the period such as buoys, rocks, and bearings, but oddly the manuscript map does not contain any of those components with one exception, the Eddystone lighthouse southwest of Plymouth sound.
The most interesting aspect of the chart is the dotted line suggesting the route of a voyage between ports in England and France including Plymouth, Dartmouth, Torquay, Weymouth, Southampton, Sheerness, Cherbourg, and Guernsey
At bottom are drawn three signal flags including the Blue Peter, which was often used when preparing to leave port, or as the caption suggests, when requesting a pilot. Of the other two flags, the center flag is confirmed as a French registration flag that indicates that the vessel was registered to the Cherbourg arondissement sector between Dunkirk and Honfleur. According to Sache:
"French merchant ships had to hoist at foremast a specific flag indicating in which arrondissement they were registered. The French coasts were divided in five metropolitan maritime arrondissements, each of them being divided in two sectors, and in two colonial sectors. The arrondissement flags were established by Royal Regulation of 3 December 1817, signed by Louis XVIII. They were confirmed in the 1852 Imperial Regulations on naval flags signed by Napoléon III and by Decree on 20 March 1868. "
Source: Sache, Ivan. France: Registration flags for merchant ships (1817-1929). Link: flagspot.net/flags/fr~arro.html#che
The illustration and quotation on this trade card were not unique to John Cosgrove but rather part of a stock design widely used by 19th-century printers who specialized in producing humorous or sentimental advertising cards. Lithographers commonly kept catalogs of ready-made comic scenes—like this seaside mother-and-child vignette with the line “It’s a wise child that knows its own mother at the sea side”—which merchants could customize by adding their own business imprint below. In this case, the printer simply inserted Cosgrove’s name, trade description, and Poydras Market address into the blank advertising panel at the bottom, allowing a small New Orleans fish dealer to benefit from professionally printed imagery at a fraction of the cost of commissioning original artwork.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1890
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: England
BODY OF WATER: English Channel
CONDITION: Very good.
On a heavy sheet of paper, apparently from a notebook. Artist has crowded the right edge leaving no margin at that side. No condition issues.
COLORING: Hand drawn and colored in outline.
ENGRAVER:
SIZE: 8
" x
11 "
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION: 7
PRICE: $450
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