Antique Blaeu Map of Maine, Le Mans and Mayenne, 1642

About this sheet

The province of Maine, titled on the plate Cenomanorum Galliae regionis typus, vulgo Le Mans. The map runs from the frontiers of Normandy and the town of Domfront in the north down through Mayenne, Chateau-Gontier and Sable to the borders of Anjou and Touraine, with the Perche and the Vendomois to the east and the county of Laval marked. A panel of explanatory text, a declaration of the map, is engraved on the sheet, together with the arms and a scale. Le Mans is a name that now travels on the strength of a motor race, but the city is one of the oldest in France and the province behind it is good walking and cider country. A well engraved and unusually detailed Blaeu plate.

The Blaeu house of Amsterdam was the greatest cartographic publisher of the Dutch golden age. Willem Jansz Blaeu began the atlas that his son Joan Blaeu carried to its full extent, and the Dutch text edition, Toonneel des Aerdriicx ofte Nieuwe Atlas, set a standard for engraving, paper and typography that no rival in Europe matched. The copper plates were cut with great delicacy, the title cartouches were designed as ornaments in their own right, and the sheets were printed on heavy laid paper that has survived three and a half centuries remarkably well.

Blaeu maps have been collected continuously since the seventeenth century and are the benchmark against which other Dutch cartography is measured, so a sheet from this atlas is a serious piece of the history of the book as well as a map. A large Blaeu plate is one of the few antique maps that can carry a wall on its own.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with the centre fold as issued, light toning and minor soiling confined to the margins; the image itself is clean and bright.

This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.