Antique Map of the Deux-Sevres, Niort and Madame de Maintenon, circa 1860

About this sheet

The department of the Deux-Sevres, in the old province of Poitou, with Niort as chef-lieu and the bocage running north towards Bressuire and Thouars. Parthenay, Airvault, Moncontour, Coulonges, Celles and La Mothe Saint-Heray are named, with the two Sevres that give the department its name drawn across it and the marshland west of Niort shown. The sheet carries an engraved portrait of Madame de Maintenon, who was born in the prison at Niort in 1635 and ended as the secret wife of Louis the Fourteenth, one of the more improbable lives of the century. This is the country of the Vendee wars, which gives the sheet a further historical pull.

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, a few small spots and a small nick at the upper edge; the image itself is clean.

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.