Detailed Antique Map of Santa Domingo, Puerto Rico, Eastern Bahamas, ca. 1780

€ 700

Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)

Date: 1780
Sheet size: 29 × 38.4 cm (11.4 × 15.1 in)
Condition: Good
Reference: PCT-57896

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

About this sheet

L'Isle de St. Domingue et celle de Porto-Rico, an original copper engraving by Rigobert Bonne, from the Atlas de Toutes les Parties Connues du Globe Terrestre, dating from about 1780. The title is set at the upper right with the credit "Par M. Bonne, Ingénieur-Hydrographe de la Marine," and five scales of leagues and miles are drawn below it.

The map shows the island of Hispaniola in the center, lettered "Isle de St. Domingue," with Puerto Rico at the lower right. Coasts, bays and ports are lettered around the shores, rivers and mountain ranges are drawn across the interior, and substantial topographical detail is shown on the island. At the upper left the Turks and Caicos Islands and the eastern Bahamas, among them Grande Inague, are included with their shoals and reefs. The map has no hand coloring or decorative cartouche, in the plain, practical manner of Bonne's engraving.

Bonne succeeded Jacques Bellin as Royal Cartographer to France at the Dépôt de la Marine in 1773, and his maps are known for their detail. St. Domingue was then France's richest colony, the sugar and coffee island that was lost in the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s.