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Auction: 25360 - The 360th Anniversary Sale
Lot: 66

ADMIRAL LORD NELSON'S PRIZE SPANISH CHART BOOK CONSULTED IN HMS VICTORY BEFORE THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR

Tofino de San Miguel (Vincente). [Untitled: Atlas Maritimo de España, Volume 2. The Mediterranean Coasts (Madrid 1789)].
Elephant folio (620 x 490 mm); with 12 harbour charts and 3 sheets of coastal profiles. Cloth boards, later leather spine titled in gilt: La Costa de Espana. Madrid: Vincente Tofiño De San Miguel, 1789.
Frontispiece inscribed in two different hands: Son del Capr. defra a Dr. tomas De Herrera [Gift of Captain Defra to D. Tomás de Herrera] to E. Berry 15th Feby. 1797. on board the St Josef.
Bookplate of the Naval & Military Library & Museum, with inscription of Sir William Beatty MD, Physician to Greenwich Hospital and former surgeon in HMS Victory.
Charts with pencil annotations marking the tracks of ships. Some water staining and debris.

Vicente Tofiño De San Miguel (1732-1795) was a Spanish mariner and chart-maker, who published the first printed Spanish sea-atlas, the multi volume 'Atlas maritimo de Espana' in 1787. This evocative part of the atlas contains only those charts of the Atlantic coasts of Spain and north-western Africa, with a series of charts of the major harbours, including Vigo Bay, Bilbao and Cadiz, including Cape Trafalgar.

Taken as a prize at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the charts were apparently retained by Nelson as valuable intelligence and used by him in HMS Victory during the Trafalgar campaign. Several charts, including for the coast with Cape Trafalgar, show pencil track marks illustrating the movement of ships ahead of the battle. Preserved as a water stained relic after the battle, and Nelson's death, by his surgeon William Beatty, the charts were subsequently presented by him to the Naval & Military Library, later the Royal United Services Institute, until eventually deacquisitioned and sold in 1962. They still retain a powerful immediacy to the days leading to the greatest sea battle in British history.



Provenance

UK Private Collection.

Maggs Bros. Ltd., London.

Disposed of by the RUSI in 1962.

By his gift to the Naval & Military Library, later renamed the Royal United Services Institute, following Beatty's appointment as Physician to Greenwich Hospital.

After the Battle of Trafalgar preserved by Dr. William Beatty (1775-1842), ship's surgeon in HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar who attended Admiral Lord Nelson as he lay mortally wounded.

Probably retained by Commodore Nelson, later Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson and transferred with him to HMS Victory in May 1803.

Taken as a prize by Edward Berry (1768-1831), lieutenant in HMS Captain, Commodore Horatio Nelson, at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Lieutenant Berry was alongside Nelson in the boarding party which captured the Spanish frigate San Josef in a celebrated episode during the action.

Tomás de Herrera, Captain of the Spanish frigate San Josef at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, 14 February 1797.











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Estimate
£80,000 to £120,000

Starting price
£72000