Southern Mexico & New Spain – Enlightenment Map by Rigobert Bonne, c.1780
€ 410
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-14105-28
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. Light age toning and minor handling wear consistent with 18th-century copperplate engraving. Original centerfold as issued. Clean impression with strong legibility; margins ample for framing.
About this sheet
Southern Mexico and Central America by Rigobert Bonne, circa 1780, an original copper engraving titled "Partie Méridionale de l'Ancien Mexique ou de la Nouv.le Espagne," with the credit "Par M. Bonne, Ingénieur Hydrographe de la Marine." The sheet is printed in black on laid paper, without color.
The map runs from the Gulf of Mexico ("Golfe du Mexique") across the Yucatán Peninsula and the Bay of Honduras to the Pacific, lettered "Mer Pacifique." Its coastlines trace the isthmus from Tehuantepec through Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to Panama at the lower right, and rivers, mountain ranges, ports, capes and inland settlements are engraved throughout. Four scale bars at the lower left give Castilian leagues, Spanish leagues, marine leagues and common French leagues, and the border carries a grid of latitude and longitude with the meridian of Paris.
Bonne was hydrographer to the French navy at the Dépôt de la Marine in Paris, succeeding Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, and maps of this type were issued for his atlases of the 1780s. The sheet gives the French view of the Spanish colonial lands of Mesoamerica and the isthmus.
