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A nice example of Fielding Lucas' finely executed map of Louisiana, with the neighboring parts of Mississippi and Alabama.
The map shows Louisiana before the formation of a number of its northern Parishes, along with a fine early depiction of Mississippi and western Alabama, only a few years after creation of Alabama Territory.
The map is hand colored by counties, showing towns, rivers, roads, forts and other places of interest.
Lucas's maps were typically printed on a higher quality paper than contemporary maps by Carey & Lea and demonstrate a superior engraving quality and more attractive coloring style. Lucas' maps are highly desirable and increasingly rare on the market.
Fielding Lucas, Jr. (1781-1854) was a prominent American cartographer, engraver, artist, and public figure during the first half of the 19th century.
Lucas was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia and moved to Philadelphia as a teenager, before settling in Baltimore. There he launched a successful cartographic career. Lucas's first atlas was announced in early- to mid-1812, with production taking place between September 1812 and December of 1813, by which point the engravings were complete. Bound copies of the atlas -- A new and elegant general atlas: Containing maps of each of the United States -- were available early in the next year, beating Carey to market by about two months. Lucas later published A General Atlas Containing Distinct Maps Of all the known Countries in the World in the early 1820s.
