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1650 Nicolas Sanson
$ 675.00
Description

Nicholas Sanson's attractive double-page engraved map of Africa, here with pleasing old hand color in outline.

Sanson was the map maker to the King of France and the most influential map maker of the mid-17th century.

Nicolas Sanson was perhaps the most influential map make of the mid-17th century. His maps were copied, both in France and abroad, for much of the rest of the 17th and early 18th centuries, including by such map makers as Richard Blome, Giovanni Rossi and others.

Condition Description
Old outline hand-color.
Reference
Betz #78.
Nicolas Sanson Biography

Nicholas Sanson (1600-1667) is considered the father of French cartography in its golden age from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth. Over the course of his career he produced over 300 maps; they are known for their clean style and extensive research. Sanson was largely responsible for beginning the shift of cartographic production and excellence from Amsterdam to Paris in the later-seventeenth century.

Sanson was born in Abbeville in Picardy. He made his first map at age twenty, a wall map of ancient Gaul. Upon moving to Paris, he gained the attention of Cardinal Richelieu, who made an introduction of Sanson to King Louis XIII. This led to Sanson's tutoring of the king and the granting of the title ingenieur-geographe du roi

His success can be chalked up to his geographic and research skills, but also to his partnership with Pierre Mariette. Early in his career, Sanson worked primarily with the publisher Melchior Tavernier. Mariette purchased Tavernier’s business in 1644. Sanson worked with Mariette until 1657, when the latter died. Mariette’s son, also Pierre, helped to publish the Cartes générales de toutes les parties du monde (1658), Sanson' atlas and the first French world atlas.