ANTARCTICA SOUTH POLAR REGIONS 1739 DU VAL UNUSUAL ANTIQUE MINIATURE WORLD MAP

Terres Antarctiques. 

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual copper engraved miniature hemispheric World map centered on the Antarctic Lands.

The map has been engraved by Matthias Ogier and published in Pierre Duval’s La Geographie Universelle qui fait voir l’Etat Present des Quatres Parties du Monde (Paris: Jacques Certe, 1739).

Date: 1739 ( undated )

Dimension: Map size approx.: cm 14,2 x 12,8

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains and wiremarks. Map contemporary handcolored. Small foxing and browming. Tear affecting the map repaired on the verso. Left lateral margin  reinforced. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images. 

Mapmaker: Pierre Duval (1618-1683) was a French geographer, cartographer, and publisher who worked in Abbeville and Paris during the seventeenth century. He was born in the former city, in northeast France, before moving to Paris. Duval was the nephew of the famous cartographer Nicolas Sanson, from whom he learned the mapmaker's art and skills. Both men worked at the royal court, having followed the royal request for artists to relocate to Paris. In addition to numerous maps and atlases, Du Val's opus also includes geography texts. He held the title of geographe ordinaire du roi from 1650 and died in 1683, when his wife and daughters took over his business.