1852 · Maps
French Colonies in the Caribbean: Maps of Martinique and Guadeloupe (1852)
$370
€330 · dollar price at today's exchange rate
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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.
- Date
- 1852
- Kind
- Maps
- Size
- 36 × 54 cm (14.2 × 21.3 in)
- Period
- Westward Expansion & Civil War
- Places
- The Lesser Antilles, The West Indies
- Reference
- BG-13618-7 and BG-13618-8
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.
Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured.
Delivery and import charges.
About this piece
Martinique and Guadeloupe, two French colonial maps from the Atlas Universel Illustré, 1852, each titled "Colonies Françaises" at the foot. They are original steel engravings with hand-colored borders, and each sheet is surrounded by an engraved decorative scene.
The Martinique sheet shows the island as a large map unrolled across the page like a curling sheet of paper, with roads and towns marked in red and the coast outlined, set among tropical growth: palm trees at the right, a stone bust on a pedestal and rocks and leaves at the left, with a printed text panel of statistics at the left margin. The Guadeloupe sheet places the map at the center with its dependencies, Marie-Galante, the Saintes and Désirade, in the same frame, flanked by two round vignettes, one of a plantation scene and one of a figure, with large palm fronds and tropical plants framing the sides and standing figures of colonial workers at the lower corners.
These pairs of vignettes and maps were typical of French atlases of the period, which combined cartography with scenes of local trade, plants and people to show the colonies' produce and its place in the empire.