SOUTH AMERICA 1679 GUILLAUME SANSON UNUSUAL ANTIQUE ORIGINAL COPPER ENGRAVED MAP

Amerique Meridionale Par N. Sanson d'Abbeville Geographe Ord.re du Roy Reveüe et changée en plusieurs endroits suivant les Memoires les plus recents Par G. Sanson Geogr. ordinaire du Roy. A Paris Chez l'Autheur aux Galleries du Louvre Avec privilege de sa Maj.sté pour 20 Ans. 1679.

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual 1679 copper engraved map of South America, published by Guillaume Sanson.
 
The map is significantly improved from Nicolas Sanson's first map of South America. The shape of South America is significantly improved and all of Tierra del Fuego is now shown. The course of the Amazon River is also greatly improved, as is the Rio de la Plata.
 
In Argentina, the river systems are now beginning to emerge.
 
The coastline of Southern Chile is also greatly improved from the map of Nicolas Sanson.

The mythical Lake Parime is shown.

Lake Parime or Lake Parima is a mythical lake located in South America. It was reputedly the location of the fabled city of El Dorado, also known as Manoa, much sought after by European explorers. Repeated attempts to find the lake failed to confirm its existence, and it was dismissed as a myth along with the city. The search for Lake Parime led explorers to map the rivers and other features of southern Venezuela, northern Brazil, and southwestern Guyana before the lake's existence was definitively disproved in the early 19th century. Some explorers proposed that the seasonal flooding of the Rupununi savannah may have been misidentified as a lake. Recent geological investigations suggest that a lake may have existed in northern Brazil, but that it dried up some time in the 18th century. Both Manoa (Lokono language) and Parime (Kalina language) are believed to mean "big lake".
 
Two other mythical lakes, Lake Xarayes or Xaraies (sometimes called Lake Eupana), and Lake Cassipa, are often depicted on early maps of South America.

The map is rishly detailed with cities, towns, villages, rivers, lakes, reliefs and islands.

A rococo-tyle cartouche includes the title.
 
This map was created by Nicolas Sanson and republished by his son Guillaume Sanson in 1679.

Date: 1679 ( dated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 58,8 x 45,3
 
Condition: Very strong and dark impression on goos paper. Paper with chains and wiremarks. Map old original colored. Small foxing. Small tears restored. Map professionally wahed and restored. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images. 

Mapmakers: Nicolas Sanson (1600 - 1667) and his descendants were the most influential French cartographers of the 17th century and laid the groundwork for the Golden Age of French Cartography. Sanson started his career as a historian where, it is said, he turned to cartography as a way to illustrate his historical studies. In the course of his research some of his fine maps came to the attention of King Louis XIII who, admiring the quality of his work, appointed Sanson Geographe Ordinaire du Roi. Sanson's duties in this coveted position included advising the king on matters of geography and compiling the royal cartographic archive. In 1644 he partnered with Pierre Mariette, an established print dealer and engraver, whose business savvy and ready capital enabled Sanson to publish an enormous quantity of maps. Sanson's corpus of some three hundred maps initiated the golden age of French mapmaking and he is considered the 'Father of French Cartography.' His work is distinguished as being the first of the 'Positivist Cartographers,' a primarily French school of cartography that valued scientific observation over historical cartographic conventions. The practice result of the is less embellishment of geographical imagery, as was common in the Dutch Golden Age maps of the 16th century, in favor of conventionalized cartographic representational modes. Sanson is most admired for his construction of the magnificent atlas Cartes Generales de Toutes les Parties du Monde. Sanson's maps of North America, Amerique Septentrionale (1650), Le Nouveau Mexique et La Floride (1656), and La Canada ou Nouvelle France (1656) are exceptionally notable for their important contributions to the cartographic perceptions of the New World. Both maps utilize the discoveries of important French missionaries and are among the first published maps to show the Great Lakes in recognizable form. Sanson was also an active proponent of the insular California theory, wherein it was speculated that California was an island rather than a peninsula. After his death, Sanson's maps were frequently republished, without updates, by his sons, Guillaume (1633 - 1703) and Adrien Sanson (? - 1708). Even so, Sanson's true cartographic legacy as a 'positivist geographer' was carried on by others, including Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, Guillaume De L'Isle, Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, and Pierre Duval.

Guillaume Sanson (1633 - 1703) was a French cartographer active in the latter part of the 17th century. He is the son of the legendary cartographer Nicolas Sanson (1600 - 1667), and, along with his brother Adrien Sanson (1639 - 1718), took over the family firm on his father's death. Like his father, Guillaume Louis XIV granted him the official title, Geographe Ordinaire du Roy. Much of his work after 1671 was published in collaboration with Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (c. 1632 - 1712). Although the continued to published new maps, particularly Guillaume Sanson, the firm began to lose prestige and market share. In 1692, the brothers sold their geographical archive to their nephew Pierre-Moulart Sanson (1670 - 1730), who published a map catalog in 1696 and reissued the Sanson atlas. After Pierre-Moulart's death, many of the surviving map plates were acquired by Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, setting the stage for another French cartographic dynasty.