Plan du Port de Ste. Hélène / Plan du Port de Melo

This sheet contains two nautical charts and a panorama. The first nautical chart, located in the upper part of the sheet, shows the plan of the “port of Santa Elena” and of the Betbeder Peninsula, Chubut, Argentina. On the other hand, in the lower part of the sheet is another nautical chart devoted to the “port of Melo” (or Melo bay), in the northern part of the Gulf of San Jorge (provinces of Chubut and Santa Cruz). Both were made by Juan Antonio Gutiérrez de la Concha y Mazón de Güemes, a naval officer trained at the Academy of Midshipmen of Cádiz. Gutiérrez arrived in Buenos Aires shortly before 1790 and took part in one of the most relevant Spanish expeditions of the late 18th century, the one directed by Alejandro Malaspina, carrying out work on the Patagonian coasts in 1795, exhaustively exploring the area between the Negro and Deseado rivers. His maps were published again by the French Navy in Paris, in the year 1821 for our example. In the central part of the map one can observe the seal of the Dépôt Général de la Marine, while in the lower right part appears the sale price of the period.