Carte de la Baye de la Table ... Kaart der Tafelbaai

Hand-coloured example of this 18th century depiction of Table Bay and surrounds. Shows well the Paarden Island where the VOC stabled its horses and where the first clinical trial (on smallpox) was conducted in South Africa.

Bellin’s chart of Table Bay accurately depicts the Bay and surrounds about a century after the Dutch settled (in 1652). The south-eastern shoreline was the site of numerous ship wrecks during the north-westerly winter storms. The Batterie to the north of the village is the Chavonnes Battery, the surviving parts of which are now a museum in the Clock Tower Precinct of the V& A Waterfront. 

Jardin et Terres de Cultivees is on what we now know as Paarden Island. The Island derived its name from the stabling of the VOC’s horses. Less well known is that in 1803 Paarden Island was the site of the first clinical trial in the country: a trial by Dr. Reinier Debbitz, to establish the safety of Cowpox vaccine; this was the beginning of active immunisation against a dreaded disease that had devastated the nascent colony in the eighteenth century.

  This map was published in Amsterdam by Jacob Schley who copied Bellin's chart for a Dutch edition of Provost's Histoire des Voyages (1773).  This explains the title provided in a French header in French and Dutch footer.

  Jacques Bellin was an important maker of charts for the French Dépôt de la Marine. He was educated as an engineer and, as hydrographer at the Dépôt, he produced many important charts. His largest and most comprehensive work was the Petit Atlas Maritime with 581 charts that cover the coasts and important port cities of the known world. It was the best compilation of plans of maritime towns and harbours of its time. Jacob van der Schley was a prominent Amsterdam engraver and draftsman.

An attractively hand-coloured example of this historically interesting chart of Table Bay - it is ideal for framing.