Carte Chorographique Des Pays-Bas Autrichiens.
[Mechelen, J. Dochez] 1777 = 1778.
TWENTY-FIVE-SHEET ENGRAVED TOPOGRAPHIC MAP OF THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS — 9.5 x 12.5 feet = 2.93 x 3.87 meters — all but three sheets outlined in contemporary hand color. Most plates are signed by L.-A. Dupuis and were engraved by Cochin fils, Eisen, Stagnon, Nicollet and others.
HOUSED IN A CONTEMPORARY “BLOOK”: a mottled calf-covered wooden box that resembles five uniformly bound quarto volumes (worn); each “spine” has six gilt-lettered labels (one black and five red); the top of the box slides off horizontally. Each sheet is backed with linen and folded to c. 195 x 155 mm. to fit the box. Each folded sheet’s “front” panel has a paper label with the map’s contents and series number in manuscript and a top-edge paper tab with the series number in manuscript.
With: Ad I-II: Produced for military purposes, this is the first printed large-scale topographic map of Belgium and Luxembourg, here with its fugitive illustrated Prospectus.
Prospectus De la nouvelle Carte…des Pays-Bas Autrichiens. ?Mechelen, ?Dochez [1777]. 4to (230 x 190 mm.). 3p. Folded as issued, with the engraved sample map laid in (183 x 230 mm.)
A skilled artillerist closely associated with the Viennese Court, Ferraris directed the survey from 1771 to 1775, at times employing up to one hundred eighty members of the artillery corps, equipped with plane tables and surveyor’s chains. The result was three 275-sheet manuscript maps — one for the Austrian Emperor, one for the Duke of Lorraine, and one for government archives. This engraved version’s sales helped subsidize the project.
FOR THIS WALL MAP FERRARIS CREATED “THE EARLIEST CHARACTERISTIC SHEET TO A TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP” (Wallis & Robinson).
This set identifies two vendors of this monumental print. The manuscript address in the prospectus directs buyers to the Covens and Mortier shop in Amsterdam, and four of the linen mounts bear the circular etched label of Paris map dealer Vignon.
In good condition (some linen frayed at the folds; top and bottom of the wooden box fragile); the linen mount of each sheet has been signed Sorberio in a contemporary hand.
¶Vervust, “Count de Ferraris’s Maps of the Austrian Netherlands (1770s)” in Imago Mundi 68 (2016) 164-82; Wallis & Robinson, Cartographical Innovations 248; Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers ed. French II: 62-3
Price: $9,500.00