| Summary: | 18th century Copper engraving handcolored with watercolor. Outline color. Printed in lower left corner: "Carte de la Californie et des Pays Nord-ouest separés de l'Asie par le Détroit d'Anian, extradite de deux Cartes publiées au commencement du 17e Siecle. Par le Sr. Robert de Vaugondy Géog. Du Roi, du feu Roi de Pologne Duc de Lorraine et de Bar et de l'Acadmie Royle. des Sciences et Belles-lettres de Nanci, et Censeur Royal 1772." Printed above title cartouche: "Avertisement. La reduction sur plus grande échelle est faite d'aprés l'Amérique en 4 f. de Vischer que l'on pourroit dalter de 1612 étant assés conforme a celle de Mercator avec quleques corrections: le cap Mendocino si trouvant vers 42. de Latitude au lieu de pres de 50 selon la derniere et lui donnant 5 dégrés de moins en Longitude. La reduction sur plus petite échelle, en forme de supplement, est tiréede la grande Mappemonde plate de Pierre Plantius publiée par Piscator (la meme que Vischer) et dédiée a Louis XIII en 1641." Printed above border in the upper right corner: "Suppl. 4e. Carte." Printed next to the title cartouche is a key: "(1) en cet endroit doit etre le Port de Monterey en 1602. (2) le C. Blanc en 1603." Written in pencil in the lower left outside border: "NOE SVR." Depicts northwest North America and California with the most detail shown along the coast. In the far northwest, Anian and Quivira are shown. The Bering Strait is shown as the "Streto di Anian." The region next to the Sierra Nevada is labeled as "Tolm Regnum" while further south and east, the area is labeled "Tontonteac Regnum Cevola" and "Nova Granada." Northern California is depicted as "Nova Albion" and is enclosed by the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The inset map shows northwest North America including California as "Mexicana." The inset also includes Anian and Quivira as well as many places along the coastline such as "C. Blanco" which appears on the inset three times. Both the map and the inset show Asia in the far northwest corner off the coast of North America. Scale: 1:19,500,000. Didier Robert de Vaugondy (1723-1786) was Royal Geographer and Censor in France (Tooley, 541). The Robert de Vaugondy family was descended from the Nicolas Sanson family and had much of his map plates. The family combined his plates with those of Hubert Jaillot's plates after his death in 1712. Combining the map plates and thoroughly revising the earlier engravings, the family created the "Atlas Universal" (1750-1757) (Moreland and Bannister, 136). Didier's work includes: "Mexico" (1749), "Maps in Atlas Universal" (1750-1757), "Nouvel Atlas portative" (1784), and "America Septentrionale" (1761). His atlases were later reissued by Delamarche (Tooley, 541). This map was first created by Didier Robert de Vaugondy in 1772 and published in 1774 within a collection of nine other maps depicting various versions of northwestern North America and the possibility of a Northwest Passage. All ten maps were published in a supplement to Robert de Vaugondy's "Encylopedie" in 1779 (Phillips, 627). According to Robert de Vaugondy's notes in the "Avertisement" section of the map, the map and its inset were based on two maps by Claes Jansz Visscher; the large map based on one from 1612 and the inset based on a planisphere published by Visscher in 1641. Wagner notes that the first date is most likely an error. He adds that the names for places on the map follow Cabrillo. He also notes that Cape Mendocino is shown at 42 degrees north latitude (Wagner, 341-2, entry 632, entry 637). The unusual inset is of note due to its depiction of the "entire west" as "Mexicana" (Wheat, 148, 221, entry 159). Source(s): Moreland, Carl and David Bannister. "Antique Maps: A Collector's Handbook." New York: Longman Group, Ltd., 1983. Phillips, Philip Lee. "List of Geographical Atlases." Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909. Tooley, Ronald Vere. "Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers." Hertfordshire: Map Collector Publications Limited, 1979. Wagner, Henry R. "The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America to the year 1800 Volume 2." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937. Wheat, Carl I. "Mapping the Transmississippi West." Volume 1. San Francisco: Institute of Historical Cartography, 1957.
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