A fine example of one of Bonne’s maps of the world, featuring the Hawaiian Islands

Description

Drawn on Mercator’s projection, this world map reflects some of the Western civilization’s newly gained geographic knowledge following Captain James Cook’s third Pacific voyage, while still showing some enduring cartographic misconceptions.

Notable features include:

• Greenland and the Arctic are attached to North America, negating the possibility of a northwest passage.
• Alaska’s outline is still sketchy.
• Hawaii is identified, named Is. Sandwich.
• The cartographic myth of a Sea of the West in western North America appears, here unnamed and with its outlet to the Pacific shown as Canal du Roi George. It is also connected by a river to Hudson Bay.
• There is another assumed large lake, in western Canada, with a river flowing to some Is. San Carlos.
• Hokkaido is named Jeso, i.e. a spelling variant of its historical name of Ezo.
• Australia appears as Nouvelle Hollande, i.e. “New Holland”, with its coastline complete but still conjectural in the south, and with Tasmania attached to it and appearing as Terre de Diemen.
• New Zealand’s coastline is complete.

The map image was engraved by Perrier, and the text – by André.

A great world map representative of French late 18^th century cartography’s shift from decorative style to an increasingly scientific approach to mapmaking.

Publication

Atlas Portatif Général Pour Servir a l'Intelligence des Auteurs Classiques

Note: Image shows pagination annotation in top left corner (N^o. 2. G. [and] N^o. 2. M.) and top right corner (N^o. 3. A.).

Condition

Very good.

A clear impression on a clean sheet. Issued folding, now flattened. Coloured in outline. Trimmed to platemark on lower right, centre bottom, and left. Minor crease at bottom left corner. Verso minute repairs to a pinhole and a tiny tear, not visible recto. Lower centrefold strengthened on verso. On verso, at upper right, very faint early annotations in manuscript.

Item #: 00660

US $300.00

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