PARDO DEL REY SPAIN 1745 JAMES BASIRE UNUSUAL ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED BATTLE MAP

Description: Striking and highly detailed interesting 1745 James Basire's copper engraved map featuring a battle plan of the encampments of the Spanish army under Louis-Joseph, duke de Vendome & the Austrian Army under Count Guido Starhemberg in Prado Del Rey in Catalonia, Spain - during the Spanish War of Succession (1701-13).
 
Duke Louis-Joseph de Vendome , 1654 — 1712 was one of King Louis XIV’s leading generals during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). Vendome was the son of Louis de Vendome, Duke de Mercoeur, by his marriage to Cardinal Jules Mazarin’s niece, Laure Mancini. Vendôme entered the French Army in 1672 and had risen to the rank of lieutenant general by the outbreak of the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97) between France and the other major powers. He distinguished himself in the victory over the Allies at Steenkirke (1692) and was made commander in Catalonia in 1695; two years later he captured Barcelona. The dispute over the succession to the Spanish throne brought France and Spain to war with the British, the Austrians, and the Dutch in 1701. Appointed to the command in northern Italy in 1702, Vendôme fought the Austrian commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy, in the bloody but indecisive Battle of Luzzara on August 15. He took Vercelli in 1704 and defeated Prince Eugene at Cassano in August 1705. In May 1706 Vendôme was transferred to the Flanders front, where the British commander John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, had just won an overwhelming victory at Ramillies. Vendôme made limited gains until he was severely defeated by Marlborough and Prince Eugene at Oudenaarde on July 11, 1708. Vendôme subsequently failed to relieve besieged Lille (in northern France), which fell to the Allies in October. Recalled by Louis XIV, he was temporarily disgraced.
 
Guido Wald Rüdiger, count of Starhemberg 1657 – 1737 was an Austrian military officer. He was a cousin of Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg (1638-1701), the famous commander of Vienna during the Turkish siege of 1683, and acted as his aide-de-camp during that siege. Guido followed his cousin, and later Prince Eugene of Savoy, in battles against the Turks. In the War of the Spanish Succession, Starhemberg fought in Italy and Spain. Between 1706 and 1708 he was the commander-in-chief of the imperial army in Hungary, leading military operations against the insurgents of Francis II Rákóczi. In 1708, he was appointed Supreme Commander of the Austrians in Spain. Together with James Stanhope he succeeded in conquering Madrid in 1710, after previously gaining victories at Almenar and Saragossa. In December, however, he was forced to leave the city by the lack of support by its inhabitants for the Habsburg pretender. After the subsequent defeats at the Battle of Brihuega and the Battle of Villaviciosa (1710), he had to pull back to Catalonia, where he was made viceroy when Archduke Charles returned to Austria. After the Peace of Utrecht (1713), archduke Charles, now Emperor Charles VI, ordered him to abandon Catalonia. He pulled back with his troops to Genoa on English ships. When he died in 1737, he was Governor of Slavonia.

A simple title at the lower side, a compass rose, a rococo-style key cartouche and a strapwork mileage scale cartouche complete the sheet. 
 
The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict, fought between 1701 to 1714. The death of Charles II of Spain in November 1700 without children resulted in a struggle for the Spanish Empire between rival claimants. Charles named his heir as Philip of Anjou, who was backed by his grandfather Louis XIV of France. His opponent, Archduke Charles of Austria, was supported by the Grand Alliance. Significant related conflicts include the Great Northern War (1700–1721) and Queen Anne's War (1702–1713).
 
Although by 1701 Spain was no longer the predominant power in Europe, the Spanish Empire remained a global power, including the Spanish Netherlands, large parts of Italy, and the Americas. Its union with either France or Austria threatened the European balance of power, and the proclamation of Philip as king of Spain on 16 November 1700 led to war. Although by 1709 the Allies had forced France onto the defensive, Philip had confirmed his position in Spain, the ostensible cause of the war.
 
When Emperor Joseph I died in 1711, Archduke Charles succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor. Union with Austria was as unwelcome as that with France, while mounting costs led the new British government to withdraw from the war. The remaining Allies fought on, but were forced to make peace due to the loss of British military and financial support. This led to the 1713 Peace of Utrecht, followed by the treaties of Rastatt and Baden in 1714.
 
Philip was confirmed as King of Spain, but in compensation he renounced his place in the French line of succession and ceded much of Spain's Italian territories to Savoy and Austria, which also acquired the Austrian Netherlands. Britain received Gibraltar and Menorca, along with trade concessions in the Americas, and was established as the leading European commercial entity. For the Dutch, despite securing and expanding their barrier fortresses and gaining part of Upper Guelders, the war marked the beginning of their decline as a major European power, while France was left financially exhausted.
 
Date: 1745 ( undated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 40,6 x 49,6

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Sheet with chains. Sheet uncolored. Small foxing and browning. Small marginal tears. Sheet folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images.

Author: Paul de Rapin (25 March 1661 – 25 April 1725), sieur of Thoyras (and therefore styled de Rapin de Thoyras), was a Huguenot historian writing under English patronage. His History of England, written and first published in French in 1724–27, was an influential exposition of the Whig view of history on both sides of the English Channel. The son of Jacques de Rapin, an avocat at Castres (Tarn); his mother Jeanne was the sister of Paul Pellisson, official historian to Louis XIV. He was educated at the Academy of Saumur, a Protestant academic institution. In 1679, he became an advocate, but he never practised law. Soon after, he joined the army. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the death of his father led him to move to England with his brother. Inclined to a military career, but unable to find work, he went on to the Dutch Republic where he enlisted in a company of French army cadets at Utrecht, commanded by his cousin, Daniel de Rapin. Rapin met the 15-years-old Jean de Bodt and seven-year old Jean de Collas also Huguenots. They accompanied William III to England in 1688 (Glorious Revolution); Collas became a page of the queen Mary II of England. De Rapin and de Both joined in Ulster under the command of the 1st Earl of Athlone. During the Williamite war in Ireland de Rapin took part in the Siege of Carrickfergus, the Battle of the Boyne, and was wounded at the Siege of Limerick (1690). Soon afterwards he was promoted to captain; but in 1693 he was asked to become tutor to the Henry, Viscount Woodstock. Rapin accompanied his father William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, a diplomat, at the Peace of Ryswick (1697), perhaps also to Paris in the year after; in a very costly entourage. Bentinck was sent as ambassador to Paris for six months. While there, he opened negotiations with Louis XIV for a partition of the Spanish monarchy, and as William's representative, signed the two partition treaties, known as the Treaty of The Hague (1698). Because of this Treaty all the diplomats settled in the Hague. In April 1699 Paul de Rapin married the widow Marie-Anne Testart (1676–1749) in a tiny village called Sloterdijk outside Amsterdam. In 1701, Bentinck resigned all his offices in the royal household. A parliamentary enquiry found him guilty of high treason for his role in the secret negotiations over the Treaty of The Hague (1698). The House of Commons' dubious conviction was overturned by the House of Lords. However, he lost all his Irish estates after a critical report by a parliamentary committee. Travelling with his 19-year-old pupil between 1701 and 1703 to Hanover, Vienna and Toscane, both parties sent letters to Bentinck. Numerous letters shed light on the preparation of the voyage, the problematic relationship between the teenager and his teacher. Sophia of Hanover admired the guy. After 1704 – when Henry married – de Rapin started secretly a new project, writing a new, impartial history of England. In 1705, he visited or lived in the Prussian town Wesel, as one of his children was baptized there. Wesel had a considerable Huguenot community, almost a thousand in 1697. The French architect and engineer Jean de Bodt was reshaping Wesel citadel in the style of Vauban. With the financial participation of the Dutch, the largest fortress in Brandenburg-Prussia at the time was built over the next 40 years – as a barricade against the expansionist ambitions of Louis XIV. Rapin settled there perhaps with the protection of Frederick I of Prussia and Sophia of Hanover, the English heir presumptive. He may have disagreed with the Second Stadtholderless period too. In 1706 his wife received a considerable amount of money and jewelry; Rapin was involved as executor of the will of his sister-in-law, the wealthy Henriette Testart.Rapin de Thoyras and his wife probably had eleven children, four were baptized in the Hague and six in Wesel; five died young. He was the author of a Dissertation sur les Whigs et les Torys (1717), which was immediately translated into German, Dutch, Danish, and English.
 
Translator: Nicolas Tindal (1687 – 27 June 1774) was the translator and continuer of the History of England by Paul de Rapin. Very few comprehensive histories existed at the time and Tindal wrote a three-volume 'Continuation', a history of the Kingdom from the reigns of James II to George II. Tindal was Rector of Alverstoke in Hampshire, Vicar of Great Waltham, Essex, Chaplain of Greenwich Hospital and a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. John Tindal, the Rector of Cornwood, Devon and Vicar of St Ives, Cornwall, was the brother of Matthew Tindal, the eminent deist and author of 'Christianity as Old as the Creation'. A near relation of Thomas, 1st Lord Clifford, Lord High Treasurer of Charles II, the Tindal family were derived from Baron Adam de Tindale, a tenant in chief of Henry II. Tindal went up to Exeter College, Oxford, where he took an MA degree in 1713. From Oxford, he took up his rectory in Hampshire and was later appointed a Fellow of Trinity. When Tindal mastered the French language is unclear, although he was the first member of his family to bear the French spelling of his name - a very popular one amongst his descendants. However, he first engaged in his life's work of historical translation with the publication, in monthly numbers, of his translation (from the French of Antoine Augustin Calmet) of the "Dissertation of the Excellency of the History of the Hebrews above that of any other Nation, wherein are examined the Antiquities and History of the Assyrians, Chaldans, Egyptians, Phoeninicans, Chinese &c. with the Peopling of America... Written in French by R. P. D'Augustin Calmet", which appears to have been a considerable undertaking. Tindal went on to write a History of Essex, having become Vicar of Great Waltham, although this project never came to fruition.

Mapmaker:  Isaac Basire (20 September 1704 – 24 August 1768) was an engraver and first in a family line of prolific and well-respected engravers. Isaac Basire was known as a map engraver. His most well-known work is the frontispiece to an edition of Bailey's dictionary (1755).
 
Family
 
He was born in London the son of Jacques or James Basire, a Huguenot and native of Rouen, and Magdelaine Lair. Isaac sparked a prodigious line of engravers, including his son James (1730-1802), grandson James (1769-1822), and great-grandson James (1796-1869). There is some difficulty in assigning works to a particular member of the family. All four worked as engravers, sometimes as an apprentice to his father, with overlapping periods of productivity, and three shared the same name.
 
James Basire
 
James Basire (1730–1802), also known as James Basire Sr., was the most significant of the family of engravers. He was noted for his skill at architectural prints and his apprenticing of the young William Blake.
 
James Basire II
 
James Basire the second (12 November 1769 – 13 May 1822) succeeded his father in an appointment from the Society of Antiquaries, indicating that he was a good draughtsman, a capable and accomplished engraver. His work and methods were nearly indistinguishable from his father's. Much of his best work was published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1808.
 
James Basire III
 
The last known James Basire was born in 1796 and died in London on 17 May 1869. He did a number of plates of Sussex country-houses including Glynde Place and Glyndebourne House, but his work and artistic skill were not as well-regarded.