Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1759
Mapmaker / artist
Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (Artist)
Sheet size
27 × 34.5 cm (10.6 × 13.6 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-11718
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.
Condition
Please review the images for further condition details.
About this sheet
The island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, an original engraved map by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, engineer of the French Navy, "Carte de l'Isle de la Guadeloupe pour servir a l'Histoire Generale des Voyages," made for the Abbe Prevost's Histoire Generale des Voyages, dated 1759. The title sits in an ornate cartouche at upper right, with a scale of French leagues in a matching cartouche at upper left, and the sheet has delicate hand color.
The map shows the twin islands of Guadeloupe, Basse-Terre and Grande-Terre, divided by the narrow channel of the Riviere Salee, with the Grand Cul de Sac at the center, and the parishes of Basse-Terre tinted in separate colors. Mari-Galante lies at the lower right and the small group of the Isles des Saintes at the bottom. Bays, anchorages, rivers and capes are named along the coast, and a compass rose with radiating rhumb lines is drawn across the sea. Hill shading shows the mountainous interior.
Bellin was the leading French hydrographic cartographer of the eighteenth century, and his small maps for Prevost's travel collection provided accurate charts of colonial islands.
