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Description

Charlevoix's 1744 Map of Canada & New England

Scarce pre-French & Indian War map of Canada, from Newfoundland to Lake Ontario and including the Northern portion of New England.

The map was issued in Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix's Histoire et Description Generale de Nouvelle France, published in Paris in 1744. Charlevoix was a Jesuit Priest who explored Canada and America's eastern regions between 1705-1720 and is widely regarded as the most important French exploraiton of the region in the second half of the 18th Century.

Condition Description
Engraving on 18th-century laid paper. Old folds flattened. Right margin extended with old paper. Bottom margin somewhat trimmed into the platemark.
Jacques Nicolas Bellin Biography

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was among the most important mapmakers of the eighteenth century. In 1721, at only the age of 18, he was appointed Hydrographer to the French Navy. In August 1741, he became the first Ingénieur de la Marine of the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine (the French Hydrographic Office) and was named Official Hydrographer of the French King.

During his term as Official Hydrographer, the Dépôt was the one of the most active centers for the production of sea charts and maps in Europe. Their output included a folio-format sea atlas of France, the Neptune Francois. He also produced a number of sea atlases of the world, including the Atlas Maritime and the Hydrographie Francaise. These gained fame and distinction all over Europe and were republished throughout the eighteenth and even in the nineteenth century.

Bellin also produced smaller format maps such as the 1764 Petit Atlas Maritime, containing 580 finely-detailed charts. He also contributed a number of maps for the 15-volume Histoire Generale des Voyages of Antoine François Prévost.

Bellin set a very high standard of workmanship and accuracy, cementing France's leading role in European cartography and geography during this period. Many of his maps were copied by other mapmakers across the continent.