Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
Description

Rare early map of the Pays de la Loire, oriented with east at the top, by Jean Le Clerc. The map is centered on the Loire River and extending from Orleans to Amboise along the course of the river. North, the map extends Boudin and Bourges south to Chasteaudun.

The map includes several cartouches, which would be revised in a rare anonymous c. 1640 edition of this map. This map is based on a north-south oriented map of the same title engraved by Tavernier and published in Maurice Bouguereau's Le Theatre Francoys, which was the first-ever engraved map of the region. Bouguereau's Theatre was also the first national atlas of France.

Le Clerc's maps are among the rarest of all French maps; this is only the second time we have handled the item. The map originally appeared in Le Clerc's Theatre Geogr du Royaume du France.

Condition Description
Deampstain in top left and right corners of the map.
Jean Le Clerc Biography

Jean Le Clerc was an engraver, bookseller and publisher in Paris and Tours.

Le Clerc was baptized on August 16, 1560 in Paris, with the engraver François Desprez (1530–1587) and the painter Jérôme Bollery (1532–1592) as his godfathers. He came from a family of printers and publishers - Jean's younger brother David Le Clerc (1561–1613) and Jean's own son Jean Le Clerc V were both book printers and publishers.

He had proved himself by 1587, at which date he was living and working on Rue Chartière in Paris. For religous reasons, as a Huguenot he fled Paris in 1588 and spent a year elsewhere in France. From 1590 to 1594 he took refuge in Tours, where he worked with the publisher and cartographer Maurice Bouguereau (15??–1596), who created Le Theatre Francoys, the first atlas of France.  Le Clerc later worked at several different addresses in Paris - on Rue Saint-Jean-de-Latran until 1610 and then on Rue Saint-Jacques until 1621/24.

Jean Le Clerc's publications included portraits, maps, contemporary news events and other engravings by Jacques Granthomme (1560–1613), Pierre Firens (1580–1636) and Léonard Gaultier (1561–1635). He collaborated with the Dutch printmaker Thomas de Leu (1560–1612) to produce a collection of 179 biblical scenes, allegories, calendar pages and other works, probably published in 1606.  They both produced engravings for it themselves as well as using works by Justus Sadeler (1580–1620), Isaac Briot (1585–1670) and Nicolas Briot (1579–1646).

On December 20, 1619 Le Clerc was granted a six-year royal concession to "engrave maps of the provinces of France and portraits of patriarchs and princes of the Hebrew people, with a chronological history". In 1620 he published his Le Théâtre géographique du Royaume de France, including newer plates as well as reworked plates from Bouguereau's work. The new plates were produced by artists such as Jean Fayen (1530–1616), Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612), Salomon Rogiers (1592–1640) and Hugues Picart (1587–1664). It went through several editions and Jean Le Clerc V continued to reissue it after his father's death.