Maps > Wall Maps(38 items) > Asia & Africa (3 items) 
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D'ANVILLE, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon (1697-1782)

Africa, with All Its States, Kingdomes, Republics, Regions, Island &c. Improved and inlarged from D'Anville's map to which have been added a particular chart of the Gold Coast [on an inset larger scale map] wherein are distinguished all the european forts and factories by S. Boulton and also a summary description relative to the trade and natural produce, manners and customs of the African continent and islands

London: Robert Laurie & James Whittle, 1794. Copper-engraved map, on four joined sheets, with original outline colour, some splits to old folds, small tears at margins, one with slight loss, overall in good condition. Sheet size: 41 1/2 x 49 1/4 inches.

A fascinating late eighteenth-century wall map of Africa, after one of France's greatest cartographers

Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville was the spiritual successor to Guillaume De L'Isle in the sense that he maintained the rigorous standard for accuracy that De L'Isle had established. D'Anville was the last French mapmaker to establish an international reputation superior to all his contemporaries, as witnessed by the respect shown by English cartographers and publishers during an era when the two countries were often at war and always hostile to one another.

This excellent map of Africa, an English edition with revisions of D'Anville by Laurie & Whittle, was issued when the European appetite for exploration and colonization of the continent was just getting underway. By this time there were well over fifty fort/trading posts on the western and southeastern coasts representing various European nations, but there had been almost no penetration of the interior (these European `forts & factories' on the Gold Coast are shown in close up on Boulton's inset map). With the gradual outlawing of the slave trade by most civilized nations, interest in the vast interior regions greatly increased as whites sought other profitable resources, and Catholic and Protestant missionaries bravely evangelised.

The peoples of Africa proved much more diverse and intriguing than ever imagined, and some of the discoveries in this regard are included in the extensive texts that are interspersed amongst the geographic features shown on the map.


#10394$2,500.00
 
 
[NOLIN, Jean-Baptiste (1657-1725)] and Jean-Baptiste NOLIN II (1686-1762)

[Africa] L'Afrique Dressée Sur les Relationes les Plus Recentes et rectifiées sur les dernieres observations

Paris: Chez l'auteur rue s.Jacques au dessous de la rue Mathurins a l'Enseigne de la Place des Victoires, 1740. Copper-engraved wall map, with original outline colour, of four joined sheets, surrounded by text and vignettes printed on separate sheets, backed onto old linen, with contemporary wooden rollers, overall in very good condition. Sheet size: 49 x 55 inches.

A rare and monumental wall map of Africa 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, as 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. Geographically, the map is relatively progressive, however it showcases some rather curious speculations. The coastlines are well defined, having been explored for over two-hundred and fifty years, however, the heart of Africa remains an enigma. In the absence of direct observation, the European imagination was given free reign. In this light, Nolin adopts the seventeenth-century conceptions popularized by De L'Isle and Coronelli that the Nile was somehow connected to the Niger River, even though both rivers flow in different directions to terminate at points thousands of miles apart. Furthermore, the written descriptions of the continent's inhabitants are replete with archaic legends of bizarre and monstrous races.

The presented map is an artistically virtuous composition on a monumental scale, the image being surrounded by thirty vignettes that depict events from African history. The focus of the vignettes is on the better known North African regions, however, there is also a great deal of attention paid to French commercial activities in Guinea. Each vignette is set within an elaborate baroque frame of a unique design, and is accompanied by textual narratives. The detailed description at the bottom is entitled "Description Geographique de L'Afrique." The large title cartouche is framed by period rocaille swirls, and is inhabited by an optimistic scene depicting the amicable commerce between Africans and Europeans, as well as a dedication to Louis XV.

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 also a vivid record of a dramatic transitional period in the history of cartography, and of society in general.

Tooley, Maps of Africa, p.86, plate 67.

#15517$25,000.00
 
 
[NOLIN, Jean-Baptiste (1657-1725)] and Jean-Baptiste NOLIN II (1686-1762)

[Asia] L'Asie Dressée sur les Nouvelles Observations Faites en toutes les Parties de la Terre et Rectifieés

Paris: Chez J.B. Nolin le Fils Geografe sur le Quay de l'Horloge du Palais a l'Enseigne de la Place des Victoires entre le Rue de Harlay et le Pont Neuf, 1740. Copper-engraved wall map, with original outline colour, of four joined sheets, surrounded by text and vignettes printed on separate sheets, backed onto old linen, with contemporary wooden rollers, overall in very good condition. Sheet size: 49 x 55 inches.

A rare and monumental wall map of Asia by one of the great French masters 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 an earlier maps produced by his father. While the geographical depiction of most of the continent is quite assured for the time, this map is one of the eighteenth-century's most fascinating experiments in cartographic speculation. Published on the very eve of Vitus Bering's voyage to Alaska and eastern Siberia, this map shows that contemporary Europeans had no real concept of what lands might have occupied these regions. North America is thus shown as reaching down to a point just north of Japan. On the other side of the continent, an absurdly large Greenland looms closely over the northern coast of Siberia to a point past Nova Zemlya. On the main map the Mariana Islands, or Nouvelle Phillipines, adorn the Pacific in a configuration consistent with the account of the Jesuit explorer Paul Clain. Curiously, the inset in the upper right corner depicts a different rendering of the same islands as suggested in a Jesuit report of 1697.

Nolin's work is an artistically virtuous composition on a monumental scale, the image being surrounded by thirty vignettes that depict various events from Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history. In turn, each vignette is set within an elaborate baroque frame of a unique design, accompanied by textual narratives. The extensive text along the lower margin is entitled "Description Géographique de l'Asie." The upper left of the main image is adorned with an especially resplendent cartouche, featuring Jesuit priests evangelizing to the diverse peoples of the continent.

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.

#15518$45,000.00
 
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