16. Map of southern Denmark and the neighbouring countries
Date: 1805.
Size: 390 x 250 mm.
Signature(s): By John Cooke Engraver to the Admiralty.
Comments: It is not at first apparent why this map should have been engraved: the area was certainly significant with Holstein (A), Hamburg (B), Lübeck (C) and Eutin (D) all on Denmark´s doorstep and Denmark possessing a portion of Prussia (E). If the name Schleswig had also appeared in the title, then there would, perhaps, have been an explanation. For centuries Holstein and the smaller Schleswig (only just visible as SLESVIG south of Jutland, underlined in the detail below) had had an uneasy partnership: the former, part of the Holy German Empire, and the latter, part of the fiefdom of the kings of Denmark.
At the Treaty
of Tsarskoye Selo in 1773, Tsar Paul 1st encouraged the Danish king
to give up Oldenburg and Delmenhorst to the Bishop of Lübeck in return for the
Duchies of Schleswig with Holstein. A year after the map was published the Holy
Roman Empire ceased to exist.
This is one
of only two maps produced by Cooke while still at the Board of Admiralty but published
by him.
[1] The BL map (Maps
cc.5.a.360) is torn at the bottom. The
RGS copy (Denmark V.F.S.7), illustrated, signature has been trimmed at bottom of map.
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