|
Click picture for larger image
Very Decorative & Rare Wall Map of the Americas
Americas.
BAILLEUL, Nicholas (le jeune) [Lyons, 1769]
L’Amerique Divisee En Ses Principales Parties ou sont distingues les ms des autres Les Etats … .
30 x 39 ½ inches.
Fine hand color; some light spotting, else excellent; elegantly framed.
An extremely rare, apparently unrecorded, wall map of the Americas. The 30 vignettes surrounding the map illustrate historical episodes in the European discovery, exploration, and colonization of the Americas. Their subjects include the initial colonization of Florida, of Virginia, and the discovery of the Mississippi River. Two of the most interesting illustrate, side by side, the migration of America’s first settlers from Asia over Alaska and the later European migration on the other side of the continent. The suggestion seems to be that the European colonization is a continuation of a process begun by its then current residents centuries ago.
The most prominent geographic feature in North America is an enormous Sea of the West, a popular fantasy in French maps of the day that renewed hope in the existence of a Northwest Passage. The political division of North America on the map, which assigns a preponderance of territory to the French, is such that the French & Indian War never happened.
|
