South America – Original Antique Enlightenment Map by Rigobert Bonne, c.1780

Name: South America – Original Antique Enlightenment Map by Rigobert Bonne, c.1780
Brand: Rigobert Bonne
SKU: BG-14105-30
Price: 490 USD
Availability: InStock

$490

€440 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1780
Maker: Rigobert Bonne
Kind: Maps
Size: 41 × 26 cm (16.1 × 10.2 in)
Condition: Good. Good antique condition. Light age toning and minor handling wear consistent with 18th-century copperplate engraving. Original centerfold as issued. Clean impression with strong legibility; margins ample for framing.
Period: The Early Republic
Places: South America
Reference: BG-14105-30

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

The whole of South America in a copper engraving by Rigobert Bonne, circa 1780, titled "Amérique Méridionale" and credited "Par M. Bonne, Ingénieur Hydrographe de la Marine." The sheet is printed in black without color, with a graticule of latitude and longitude and the meridian of Paris lettered along the foot.

The continent is shown from the Caribbean coast down to Tierra del Fuego, with the "Mer du Nord" at the top, the "Océan Méridional" on the Atlantic side and the "Mer du Sud" along the Pacific. Brazil ("Brésil") fills the broad eastern bulge, and the Amazon is traced across the interior from the Andes to its mouth, with its "Ligne Equinoxiale" crossing near the equator. The Río de la Plata opens at the south, Chile and Peru line the Pacific coast, and the Tropic of Capricorn is marked at the left. Provinces, settlements and rivers are lettered throughout. Scale bars at the lower right give Spanish, Portuguese, Castilian and common French leagues.

Bonne was hydrographer to the French navy at the Dépôt de la Marine in Paris, succeeding Jacques-Nicolas Bellin. The sheet is part of the set of continental and regional maps he issued around 1780, and it records the Spanish and Portuguese division of the continent in the years before independence.

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