Antique Map of Bourbon, Reunion, with the Island Volcano, circa 1860

About this sheet

A map of the island of Bourbon, now Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, with Saint-Denis on the north coast, Saint-Paul, Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Rose around the shore, the cirques and the Piton des Cilaos in the interior, and the burnt country of the Pays Brule along the south east where the lava reaches the sea. A separate engraved view on the sheet shows the volcano of the island in eruption. Island maps sell better than their size suggests, because the buyer is usually someone with a personal connection to the place, and Reunion is well enough populated to make that market a real one. The volcano view is what lifts this sheet above the rest of the colonial section.

La France, Nouvel Atlas Illustre des Departements et des Colonies was drawn by Alexandre Vuillemin, ingenieur geographe, and published in Paris by Migeon at 9 rue de la Vieille Monnaie. Vuillemin built each sheet from the official surveys, the Cassini maps, the Depot de la Guerre, the Ponts et Chaussees and the charts of the Marine, and then framed the map with engraved vignettes: a portrait of a figure born in the department, a view of a monument or a ruin, a coat of arms. The result is part atlas and part popular encyclopaedia, and it remains one of the most decorative French departmental series of the nineteenth century.

The plates in this copy show France divided into eighty six departments and the county of Nice still outside the frontier, so the engraving was completed before the annexation of Savoy and Nice in 1860, although Migeon went on issuing the atlas for many years afterwards. The sheets suit a French interior particularly well, and a group of neighbouring departments hung together makes an attractive run.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning and scattered foxing 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.