Antique Map of the Haute-Saone, Vesoul and Gray, Vuillemin, circa 1860

About this sheet

An antique map of the department of the Haute-Saone, in the old province of Franche-Comte, drawn by Alexandre Vuillemin and published in Paris by Migeon around 1860. The map carries Vesoul, the chef-lieu, with Gray on the Saone and Lure to the east, and the spa town of Luxeuil-les-Bains in the north, together with the course of the Saone and its tributary the Ognon and the wooded hills that rise toward the southern end of the Vosges. This is the northern half of Franche-Comte, a country of limestone plateaux, forest and vineyards that belonged to the Spanish Habsburgs until Louis the Fourteenth took it for France in the seventeenth century, and the department still keeps a character of its own between Burgundy and the Swiss frontier. The sheet is a steel engraving with original hand colour, in the decorative departmental format described below. An antique map of the Haute-Saone has an obvious buyer in anyone with a family connection to Vesoul, Gray or Luxeuil, and it frames handsomely for a study or a hallway.

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, faint offsetting and minor edge nicks confined to the margins; the image 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.