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D'ANVILLE, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon (1697-1782)
[Louisiana and the Gulf Coast] Carte De La Louisiane
Paris: D'Anville, 1752. Copper-engraved map, on two joined sheets, in excellent condition. Sheet size: 21 3/4 x 38 1/2 inches.
A very fine copy of one of the most influential French map of Louisiana, by the royal cartographer D'Anville
This very important and highly detailed map represents the most authoritative expression of French knowledge of Louisiana, the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River. It was tremendously influential, being consulted by cartographers for the next two generations. The map takes in the entire region from what is now the Louisiana-Texas border in the west over past Bay St. Joe's, Florida in the east. The main map charts the course of the Mississippi from the 33rd parallel down to its delta on the Gulf. The cartographic inset on the right side of the map features the Mississippi basin up to a point north of its confluence with the Missouri River.
Jean Baptiste Bouguignon d'Anville was appointed Royal Geographer to Louis XV at the age of twenty. A meticulous scholar of cartographic sources, he drew on fifty years of French exploration of the region to draft this map in 1732. Owing to that fact that Paris was not eager to share its advanced geographic knowledge with its rivals, this map was not printed until 1752, as noted beneath the title. Cavalier de La Salle was the first explorer to travel down the Mississippi to the Gulf in 1682, claiming the region for France. The Sieur d'Iberville founded New Orleans in 1717, and by the time this map was drafted, the French had heavily explored the region. As shown here, they had at various times established a series of forts including Fort Rosalie (Natchez), Mobile, Biloxi, and various missions in the upper Mississippi valley. The Spanish settlement of Pensacola as well as numerous native villages are also depicted. As evinced here, the French had not only surveyed the Gulf coast but also the interior, as the courses of many rivers, such as the Red, Ouachita, Pearl, Pascagoula, and Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri Rivers are clearly delineated.
Cartographic Resources in the Rosenberg Library, 333; Charting Louisiana, 24; The Lowery Collection, 141; Phillips, A List of Maps of America, p.368
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#19689 $2,750.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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