CASPIAN SEA RUSSIA & IRAN 1753 D'ANVILLE UNUSUAL ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED MAP

Erste Revolution des Caspischen Meeres, oder Karte worauf dessen Arisdehnung um die Zeit der urspriingliehen Bevöl Kerung Asien angezeigt wird.

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual 1781 German edition of the Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville's copper engraved map representing a theoretical early period, in which the Caspian sea was connected to other known Asiatic waters, including the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf, and the White Sea. It also connected to a speculative Glacial Sea. The mapping as a whole is curiously reminiscent of Kircher, whose theories may have inspired it. Geographically, it covers from the Mediterranean to India and from the Arctic to the Persian Gulf. Curiosly mountain ranges seem to run beneath the seas. Between the Caspian Sea and the Glacial Sea, the Island of Tazata, a legendary island postulated by Pliny the Elder, is presented. A note at the bottom of this map translates, 'The Caspian Sea should appear here larger than in the following three maps: but has been forced to reduce its communication to show with four Seas'.

Date: 1781 ( indated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 32,4 x 24,6

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

Mapmaker: Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (1697 - 1782) was perhaps the most important and prolific cartographer of the 18th century. D'Anville's passion for cartography manifested during his school years when he amused himself by composing maps for Latin texts. There is a preserved manuscript dating to 1712, Graecia Vetus, which may be his earliest surviving map - he was only 15 when he drew it. He would retain an interest in the cartography of antiquity throughout his long career and published numerous atlases to focusing on the ancient world. At twenty-two D'Anville, sponsored by the Duke of Orleans, was appointed Geographer to the King of France. As both a cartographer and a geographer, he instituted a reform in the general practice of cartography. Unlike most period cartographers, D'Anville did not rely exclusively on earlier maps to inform his work, rather he based his maps on intense study and research. His maps were thus the most accurate and comprehensive of his period - truly the first modern maps. Thomas Basset and Philip Porter write: "It was because of D'Anville's resolve to depict only those features which could be proven to be true that his maps are often said to represent a scientific reformation in cartography." (The Journal of African History, Vol. 32, No. 3 (1991), pp. 367-413). In 1754, when D'Anville turned 57 and had reached the height of his career, he was elected to the Academie des Inscriptions. Later, at 76, following the death of Philippe Buache, D'Anville was appointed to both of the coveted positions Buache held: Premier Geographe du Roi, and Adjoint-Geographer of the Academie des Sciences. During his long career D'Anville published some 211 maps as well as 78 treatises on geography. D'Anville's vast reference library, consisting of over 9000 volumes, was acquired by the French government in 1779 and became the basis of the Depot Geographique - though D'Anville retained physical possession his death in 1782. Remarkably almost all of D'Anville's maps were produced by his own hand. His published maps, most of which were engraved by Guillaume de la Haye, are known to be near exact reproductions of D'Anville' manuscripts. The borders as well as the decorative cartouche work present on many of his maps were produced by his brother Hubert-Francois Bourguignon Gravelot. The work of D'Anville thus marked a transitional point in the history of cartography and opened the way to the maps of English cartographers Cary, Thomson and Pinkerton in the early 19th century.

Adam Gottlieb Schneider und Weigel (fl. 1794 - 1805) was a German publishing concern based in Nuremburg. Adam Gottleib Schneider und Weigel is the name under which the firm of Christoph Weigel (c. 1654 - 1725) published following its partnership with Adam Gottlieb Schneider (1745 - 1815) in 1794. The firm employed Conrad Mannert as an engraver and published only a few maps, most of which are exceptionally rare. Stylistically Schneider and Weigel's work fits into the German tradition established by Homann, Seutter, and Lotter.