Great Lakes Antique Map — Canada, Midwest USA, Enlightenment Era, Bonne c.1780
€ 430
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1780
Sheet size
26 × 41 cm (10.2 × 16.1 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14105-46
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Good antique condition with age-related toning, visible central fold as issued, light scattered spotting, and minor handling wear consistent with eighteenth-century paper; margins remain adequate for framing.
About this sheet
The Great Lakes region in a copper engraving by Rigobert Bonne, circa 1780, titled "Partie Occidentale du Canada, contenant les cinq Grands Lacs, avec les Pays Circonvoisins," credited "Par M. Bonne, Ingénieur Hydrographe de la Marine." The sheet is printed in black without color.
The five lakes spread across the center and right of the sheet, lettered Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, with their connecting straits and the shoreline traced in detail. Hudson Bay and James Bay appear at the upper right, and the Mississippi and Missouri drainage lies to the west and south. Across the land the names of Native peoples are set in italic and spaced capitals: the Assiniboine ("Assenipoëls"), the Sioux, the Illinois, and the Algonquins, Hurons and Iroquois nearer the lakes. Rivers, portages and a scatter of forts and settlements are marked, and scale bars in English miles, French leagues and marine leagues are placed at the upper left beneath the title.
Bonne was hydrographer to the French navy at the Dépôt de la Marine in Paris, succeeding Jacques-Nicolas Bellin. The sheet shows the interior of the continent as European geographers understood it in the years after the Seven Years' War, with the lakes as the main routes of the fur trade.
