Manuscript Atlas by the Future Director General of the Louvre Museum.
18 Exquisitely Drawn Maps by Alphonse de Cailleux after Rigobert Bonne.
This unique atlas volume contains 18 original pen and ink manuscript maps drawn by the young Alphonse de Cailleux. At the time of producing these maps Cailleux was approximately 13 or 14 years old. The maps are after Rigobert Bonne, a renowned cartographer of the time, and they portray a world far beyond the borders of France. Each map, while adhering to cartography by Bonne, is a testament to de Cailleux's impressive accuracy and meticulous attention to detail. His adept use of outline coloring further contributes to the visual appeal of the maps.
Despite their derivation from Bonne's work, Cailleux's maps are striking for their skillful execution and inherent artistic value. They exhibit a level of proficiency and aesthetic appeal remarkable for a draftsman of his age, presaging the formidable talent that would later establish him as a significant figure in French art and culture. The collection of maps, thus, serves not only as a valuable item of cartographic interest, but also as an intriguing historical artifact, offering insights into the early development of an influential artist and cultural steward.
The masterfully drawn maps in the present atlas were all made by Alphonse de Cailleux (1788-1876), during his teenage years. In 1841 he succeeded Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin as directeur général of the Musée du Louvre and all the royal museums of France. As a staunch royalist, he resigned his official posts when Louis Philippe abdicated in February 1848.
The 18 maps plus 3 sphere and celestial charts are dated years X and XI of the French Revolution. The volume contains 23 leaves of laid paper, similarly watermarked with French Revolutionary calendar dates. The maps are:
- Table of Contents
- Title Page (elaborately pen & ink)
- Spheres: Spheres de Copernic / Sphere de Ptolemée
- Celestial Systems (first part): Le Systême de Ptolémée / Le Systême de Copernic / Le Systême de Ticho Brahé / Le Systême de Descartes
- Celestial Systems (second part): Zones, Climats, l'Hemisphere de la Terre, Antipodes, Rose des Vents, etc.
- World: Mappe-Monde en Deux Hémispheres l'Oriental et l'Occidental
- Europe par Alp. Cailleux ce Praireal an X [June 1802]
- Spain/Portugal: Royaumes D'Espagne et de Portugal
- France Comparative en Provinces et en Départemens par Alp. Cailleux, ce Thermidor An X [August 1802]
- Germany: Allemagne. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Messidor an X [July 1802]
- Switzerland: La Suisse ses Alliés et ses Sujets avec ceux de ses Allies. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Praireal an X [June 1802]
- Italy: Italie. Par Alph. Cailleux, ce Thermidor an X [August 1802]
- Netherlands: Les Sept Provinces-Unis ou Hollande avec les Pays Bas Autrichiens. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Floreal an XI [May 1803]
- Britain: Royaumes D'Angleterre D'Ecosse et D'Irlande. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Praireal an XI [June 1803]
- Scandinavia: Les Royaumes de Danemarck et de Norwege, avec Celui de Suede. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Messidor an X [July 1802]
- Russia: Partie Europeenne de L'Empire de Russie. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Prairial an XI [June 1803]
- Poland: Le Royaume de Pologne et le Grand Duche de Lithuanie. Avec les demenbrements qu'ils ont eprouve. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Praireal an X [June 1802]
- Hungary: Royaume, de Hongrie avec la partie la plus Septentrionale de la Turquie D'Europe. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Thermidor an X [August 1802]
- Turkey in Europe: Partie Méridionale de la Turquie D'Europe. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Messidor an X [July 1802]
- Asia: Asie. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Floreal an XI [May 1803]
- Africa: Afrique. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Floreal an XI [May 1803]
- North America: Amerique Septentrionale. Par Alp. Cailleux, ce Floreal an XI [May 1803]
- South America: Amerique Méridionale. Par Alph. Cailleux, ce Floreal an X [May 1802]
Mer de L'Ouest
The map of North America is notable for depicting an apocyrphal and outsized Mer de L'Ouest in the Northwest, with placenames of Quivara and Port de François Drake. This is Guillaume De L'Isle's concept of the Mer de l'Ouest, an imaginary sea that occupied much of western North America, and which was thought provide a link to the Northwest Passage. It takes the form of a massive round sea, which opens to the Pacific around the place of modern day Oregon, and is ambiguously left open in its northern reaches, supposedly to connect to the Northwest Passage. The mythical kingdom of Quivira is located on the sea's southeastern shore (noted here), near the terminus of the mythical Riviere de l'Ouest, which held out the hope of a relatively easy voyage from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The rest of the continent is shown quite accurately, for example California is properly connected to the mainland, and the Rio Grande, the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes are mostly correctly delineated.
Rigobert Bonne
Cailleux based his maps on the work of Rigobert Bonne (1727-1795), a notable French cartographer active in the later part of the 18th century. He is well known for his work as the Royal Hydrographer at the Depot de la Marine, the French governmental agency responsible for issuing official maritime charts. His work primarily focused on marine and coastal charts, but he also produced a number of significant terrestrial maps.
Bonne is perhaps most renowned for his role in developing a type of map projection now known as the "Bonne Projection". This is a pseudoconical equal-area map projection typically used for small-scale maps. It has the property that distances along the central meridian and the central parallel are correct, and the areas of any regions on the map are portrayed accurately relative to each other.
His Atlas Encyclopédique (1787-1788), which he created with map publisher Nicolas Desmarest, was a significant cartographic work of the period, containing numerous maps and charts along with accompanying explanatory text on geography and history.
Bonne's work is representative of the Enlightenment's approach to cartography and scientific accuracy. His maps are still appreciated today for their historical significance and their craftsmanship.
Rigobert Bonne (1727-1794) was an influential French cartographer of the late-eighteenth century. Born in the Lorraine region of France, Bonne came to Paris to study and practice cartography. He was a skilled cartographer and hydrographer and succeeded Jacques Nicolas Bellin as Royal Hydrographer at the Depot de la Marine in 1773. He published many charts for the Depot, including some of those for the Atlas Maritime of 1762. In addition to his work at the Depot, he is best known for his work on the maps of the Atlas Encyclopedique (1788) which he did with Nicholas Desmarest. He also made the maps for the Abbe Raynals’ famous Atlas de Toutes Les Parties Connues du Globe Terrestre (1780).
More than his individual works, Bonne is also important for the history of cartography because of the larger trends exemplified by his work. In Bonne’s maps, it is possible to see the decisive shift from the elaborate decorations of the seventeenth century and the less ornate, yet still prominent embellishments of the early to mid-eighteenth century. By contrast, Bonne’s work was simple, unadorned, and practical. This aesthetic shift, and the detail and precision of his geography, make Bonne an important figure in mapping history.