|
||
|
|
|
|
This is a rare copper-engraved map that delineates the new political geography of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth immediately after the Third Partition. The map differentiates the lands ceded to Prussia, Russia, and Austria in three colors, visually translating the terms of the 1795 partition treaty into a single, comprehensible image.
The Third Partition, concluded in October 1795, erased Poland as a sovereign state for more than a century. Schneider & Weigel’s map, issued scarcely a year later illustrates the boundaries sanctioned by the three imperial powers.
The engraving illustrates the former Commonwealth from the Baltic littoral to the upper Dnister and from Brandenburg’s eastern frontier to the western fringe of Volhynia. Prussian acquisitions (including Warsaw and the Baltic corridor) appear in green; Russian annexations, sweeping from the Niemen to the Bug and embracing Vilnius and Minsk, are shown in pink; Austrian gains in Galicia and the lands south of the Vistula are set in yellow.
Rarity
This is the first state of three, as described below. All states of the map are rare on the market.
States
There are apparently at least 3 states of the 1796 map:
- No scale of miles in top blank margin and no color coding for Austrian (yellow), Prussian (red) and Russian (green) regions.
- Addition below the lower left neatline of a color coding for Austrian (yellow), Prussian (red) and Russian (green) regions.
- Three scales of miles added above top neatline.
