About this sheet
The Dauphine, titled on the plate Delphinatus, vulgo Dauphine, avec les confins des pais et provinces voisines, and drawn by Jean de Beins, geographer and engineer to the king, who surveyed the province and its Alpine frontier in person. Lyon, Vienne, Valence, Tournon and Crest are named along the Rhone, with Bresse and Bugey to the north, Chambery and the Tarentaise in Savoy to the east, Languedoc to the west and Provence and part of Piedmont to the south. Scales of Gallic, Italian and German miles are engraved on the sheet and the imprint reads Apud Guilielmum et Joannem Blaeu. The Alpine content makes this one of the more dramatic French plates, and de Beins is a name that map collectors know.
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 light toning, soiling and scattered small spots in the margins and slightly frayed edges; the centre fold is as issued.
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.
