Nolin's Le Theatre du Monde - THE LARGEST KNOWN EXAMPLE OF THIS RARE ATLAS

THE LARGEST KNOWN EXAMPLE OF THIS RARE ATLAS NOLIN, Jean Baptiste (père et fils) (père ca. 1657–1708, fils 1686–1762). Le Theatre du Monde dedié au Roi contenant les cartes generales des royaumes et etats Qui le composent Avec plusieurs provinces Subdiviséez en Pays et autres Divisions curieuses Accompagné de Remarques et Observations Geografiques, Politiques, et Historiques, les quelles en donnent L'intelligence et font connoistre L'Utilité de cet Ouvrage Dreßées. Paris: Chez l’Auteur, "170 " (1746). Here is what AI says it’s worth: $135,000. Folio (21” x 14 ¾”, 532mm x 374mm; including stubs): binder’s blank, engraved title-page, 123 engraved maps (of which all but a handful are double-page, and all but one with original hand-outlining), 4pp. contents in ink manuscript. Bound in XVIIIc speckled calf. On the boards, a double blind fillet border. On the spine, eight raised bands. Gilt fleurons in the panels. Title gilt to red morocco in the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. Marbled end-papers. Binding recently restored. Boards with an even and stable craquelure. Upper fore-corners bumped. Publication date supplied in manuscript. Pigment oxidized through to the back of most plates. Some scattered stains, the occasional tanned gathering, but altogether remarkably clean and handsome. According to the manuscript contents at the back, four items are lacking: the frontispiece and three maps: 36 (Direction de Bordeaux), 91 (Vallée des Barbets) and 101 (Terres du Pape à Toscane). Jean-Baptiste Nolin is the name of both father and son (père ca. 1657–1708, fils 1686–1762) who were engravers (Nolin père graveur du roi), cartographers and booksellers. Nolin père drew heavily on the maps of Coronelli and of Jean-Nicholas de Tralage (alias Sieur de Tillemon), but the beauty and scope of his maps are genuine achievements. After the death of the elder Nolin, the younger continued to update, publish and sell the splendid maps from the family publishing-house-cum-bookshop on the Quai de l’Horloge, where other major cartographers (de Fer, de l’Isle, du Val et al.) set up shop on the north coast of the Île de la Cité in Paris. The maps range in date from 1694 (Catalogne) to 1745. Many are multipart, being intended to be trimmed and mounted on a wall, doubtless the fate of most copies. The famous four-sheet double-hemisphere map (4-7, following the numeration of the manuscript contents) is called by Shirley “one of the finest large-scale world maps to be produced” (here present in its 1740 issue, with the mythical “Mer de l’Ouest” shrunk to reflect new discoveries. The additional elaborate borders that sometimes encircle wall-mounted examples were in fact issued separately. The first 104 maps deal with the Old World (with the final map depicting the Roman Empire). The following 18 maps depict the rest of the world: a four-sheet map of Asia; a map of southeast Asia (“Le Royaume de Siam”), dated to 1742 and of signal importance and enduring appeal with its elephant-cartouche, the result of collaboration between Coronelli and Nolin; a sea-chart (not colored) of the Bay of Bengal through to the Gulf of Thailand; a four-sheet map of Africa; a map of the Americas, depicting the “Mer de l’Ouest,” and a four-sheet map of the Americas; a detail of Nouvelle France, showing the delineation between French and British colonies (including recognizing New York as a British territory) in the American Northeast; “Nouveau Mexique” in its second state, showing California as an island and the Rio Grande clearly; the exquisite Caribbean map drawn by Coronelli and corrected by Tillemon and Nolin; and a final map of South America, whose cartouches feature a penguin and cannibals. This is the fourth recorded example of this atlas, and the largest. The other three are: Yale 1976 Folio 53 (MS date 1707), with 114 (of 122 in manuscript contents) maps; Library of Congress G1015 .N65 1744 (MS Date 1744), with 55 maps; Bibliothèque nationale de France FRBNF444694850000004, with 102 maps. Shirley 546, pl. 381 & 605, pl. 417 (maps 4-7); Wheat Transmississippi 66 (map 125).

Stima:€134,130.15

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