Antique Map of the Rhone, Lyon and Ancient Lugdunum, Vuillemin, circa 1860

About this sheet

The department of the Rhone, the smallest in France and the richest in trade, with Lyon at the meeting of the Rhone and the Saone. The map runs from Beaujeu and the Beaujolais vineyards in the north through Villefranche and Tarare down to Condrieu and the approach to Vienne, with Saint-Genis-Laval and the industrial suburbs around the city. The sheet carries a vignette of Lugdunum, the Roman colony from which Lyon grew, a reminder that this was the administrative capital of the Gauls long before it was a silk city. Lyon material has a wide market, and the combination of a clean departmental map with a classical view gives this plate more appeal than most of the series.

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 faint soiling confined to the margins; 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.