Maps > Wall Maps(40 items) > South America (2 items)
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	DU VAL, Pierre (1618-1683) L'Amerique Suivant les dernieres Relations avec les Routes que l'on tient pour Les Indes Occidentales Paris: M[ademois]elle DuVal, dated 1679 [but 1688]. Copper-engraved wall map, with original outline colour, from Duval's "Carte de Geographie," on four unjoined sheets, expertly re-margined with laid paper on two sides of each sheet, compensating margins at the places where the maps were previously joined. Each sheet 19 1/8 x 23 5/8 inches, if joined the sheets would form a map measuring 34 x 45 inches. A magnificent seventeenth century wall map of the Americas and the Western Hemisphere by one of the greatest French cartographers This superb map of the New World evinces mid-seventeenth century French geographical knowledge, based largely upon the work of the great French cartographer, Nicolas Sanson, Duval's father-in-law. It is also an excellent example of the French cartographic aesthetic, exalting clarity and classical elegance. Duval, with some geographical modernizations, based this map on his smaller 1655 rendering of the same subject. California is depicted as an island, as rendered by contemporary Dutch cartographers such as Frederick de Wit and Carel Allard. A speculative aspect also dominates the portrayal of the rest of the American Southwest, such as the labelling of the mythical land of "Quivira" on the mainland, and the depiction of the Rio Grande as having its source in the fictitious "Lac de Conibas," and its terminus in the Gulf of California. The depiction of the American Northeast is somewhat more progressive than that shown by Sanson. New York, Boston, Cape Cod, Virginia and Maryland are each specifically named. Up into the interior, Duval shows all five Great Lakes, however the boundaries of Lakes Superior and Michigan ("Lac des Puans") are left undetermined. Most of the American Southeast is shown as a part of the great Spanish territory of "Floride," which extends north into the Carolinas. South Carolina is labeled "Floride Françoise," and "Charles-Fort," the abortive French settlement on Port Royal Sound from the 1560s, is labeled here. Interestingly, this map seems to have been a rhetorical device intended to promote the idea of a Northwest Passage that runs through the Canadian Arctic and then through a supposed strait into the Pacific Ocean. Duval makes the case clearly by stating that "It is believed that this strait communicates between the Seas of the North and the South". Supporting this notion, the map features the track of a supposed 1665 voyage that headed through the Davis and Hudson's Straits, and over through the "Mer Glaciale," heading towards "Iesso," a mythical land located to the north of Japan. The South Pacific and Australasia are shown to be largely a mystery to the European consciousness, with New Zealand being connected to the mythical "Terre de Quir." The map is beautifully embellished with two Baroque cartouches including allegorical and native figures, and sailing ships. Each mapsheet is also adorned with side panels of text that explain political and geographical details of the regions featured. This map is the second state of Duval's map of the New World, printed under the privilege of his daughter, who was one of the inheritors of his firm upon his death in 1683. The imprint in the general title is altered to read "Chez Mlle. Du Val, Fille de l' Auteur Sur le Quay de l'Orloge, proche le coin de la rue de Harlay a l'ancien Buis." Each of the four sheets is separately titled, as follows: [upper left] "Le Nouveau Mexique et La Terre de Jesso"; [lower left] "La Mer de Sud dit autrement Mer Pacifique"; [upper right] "La Mer de Nort ou sont La Nle. France, La Floride [&c.]"; [lower right] "Le Perou, Le Chili, La Magellanique, La Plata, et Le Bresil". Burden, The Mapping of North America II, 508; McLaughlin, California as an Island, 66; Pastoureau, Les Atlas Francais XVIe-XVIIe siecles, Duval II-F, maps: 10,11,13,14 (State 2); Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America, 414; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, 60. #6774$14,500.00
	[NOLIN, Jean-Baptiste (1657-1725)] and Jean-Baptiste NOLIN II (1686-1762). L'Amerique Dressée sur les Relations les plus Recentes rectifiées sur les dernieres observations Paris: Chez l'Auteur Rue St. Jacques au dessus de la Rue des Mathurins a lensgne. de la Place des Victoires, 1740. Copper-engraved wall map, with original outline colour, composed from four joined sheets, surrounded by text and vignettes printed on separate sheets, backed onto old linen, with contemporary wooden rollers. Sheet size: 49 x 55 inches. First state of a rare and monumental wall map of the Americas by a great French master of cartography. Jean-Baptiste Nolin was one of the most accomplished and certainly the most ambitious French cartographer of his era. He founded what ultimately became a family empire in Paris in the 1680s. Exceptionally, he managed to marry superlative decorative ornamentation with the serious objective of producing maps that reflected the most advanced rendering of geographical detail. The artistic élan of his compositions evinced a style that preserved the rhetorical ambitions of the Baroque ethic, while anticipating the playful elegance of the Rococo period. His masterpieces, many like the present wall map, were monumental in scale and represented Nolin's desire to overwhelm his competition in what was a very challenging market. Highly controversial, Nolin occasionally described himself as "the Engraver to the King," an appointment of which the royal court was curiously never apprised. In his endeavour to include the very latest geographical details on his maps, he seldom hesitated to acquire information from his eminent contemporaries, most notably Guillaume De L'Isle and Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, Jean-Dominique Cassini and the Sieur de Tillemon. At times these rivals were not appreciative of Nolin's adoption of their intellectual property, and De L'Isle successfully sued Nolin for plagiarism in 1705. However, the larger-than-life Nolin always seemed to transcend these challenges, leaving a thriving enterprise to be taken up by his son. The present map was created in 1740 by Jean-Baptiste Nolin II, largely based on earlier maps produced by his father. This work ambitiously endeavours to depict the Americas in the most up-to-date geographic form, generally borrowing from the most authoritative sources. Ironically, it was the senior Nolin's desire to acquire the most accurate information that caused him to propagate one of the eighteenth-century's greatest cartographic myths. By this time, South America had been quite thoroughly explored, however, the Pacific northwest and the adjacent interior areas of North America remained largely unseen by European eyes. The only prominent feature present in this terra incognita is the mythical Mer de l'Ouest, that sees the Pacific protrude dramatically into the continental landmass. The senior Nolin was the first cartographer to put this detail into print, his campaign of corporate espionage having uncovered a manuscript map by De L'Isle which depicted the sea. This incident was one of the key pieces of evidence that won De L'Isle's suit against Nolin. Although the Mer de l'Ouest is dramatically smaller here than in its original form (and is unlabelled in this map) it sustains a fascinating myth. The map is an artistically virtuous composition on a monumental scale, the image being surrounded by thirty vignettes that depict the dramatic historical events that shaped the founding of the French and Spanish empires in the Americas. Each vignette is set within an elaborate baroque frame of a unique design, accompanied by descriptive text. The extensive text along the lower margin entitled "Description Géographique de l'Amérique" places this important map into its greater social and historical context. The map is further enhanced by a large decorative title cartouche, magnificently framed by period rocaille motifs, that depicts French Jesuits ministering to the Indians. A small vignette below the cartouche shows beavers at work, a popular motif on eighteenth-century maps of America The map also features a decorative detail that represents a social commentary on contemporary European attitudes towards the indigenous peoples they encountered in the New World. The scene occupying the lower-left of the main image depicts Mars, the god of war, capriciously watching over two Europeans who are firing rifles onto a group of native Americans, who themselves are engaging in macabre acts of cannibalism. This wall map is one of the greatest subjects of the Nolins' legacy, not only being a masterful work of art and a fascinating image that tests the very limits of European geographical knowledge, but a vivid record of a dramatic transitional period in the history of cartography, and of society in general. Hale, The Discovery of the World Maps of the Earth and the Cosmos, p. 159 #10419$65,000.00
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