This item has been sold, but you can get on the Waitlist to be notified if another example becomes available, or purchase a digital scan.

1759 Bellin Map of Iceland

Iceland-bellin-1759
$175.00
Carte de l'Islande, Pour Servir à la Continuation de l'Histoire générale des Voyages. - Main View
Processing...

1759 Bellin Map of Iceland

Iceland-bellin-1759

A beautiful 18th century map of Iceland - known as the Land of Fire and Ice.

Title


Carte de l'Islande, Pour Servir à la Continuation de l'Histoire générale des Voyages.
  1759 (undated)     12.75 x 15.25 in (32.385 x 38.735 cm)     1 : 700000

Description


This is a 1759 Jacques-Nicolas Bellin map of Iceland. The map depicts the entirety of the island and divides it into four regions. Numerous rivers are illustrated, as are groups of mountains. Two 'villes episcopales' are noted, Skalhol and Helum, which an explanation in the lower left corner states are simply places were business takes place when Danish traders arrive on the island. Several locations along the coast are identified.

This map was created by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin for inclusion in Abbé Prévost's Histoire Générale des Voyages.

Cartographer


Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 - March 21, 1772) was one of the most important cartographers of the 18th century. With a career spanning some 50 years, Bellin is best understood as geographe de cabinet and transitional mapmaker spanning the gap between 18th and early-19th century cartographic styles. His long career as Hydrographer and Ingénieur Hydrographe at the French Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine resulted in hundreds of high quality nautical charts of practically everywhere in the world. A true child of the Enlightenment Era, Bellin's work focuses on function and accuracy tending in the process to be less decorative than the earlier 17th and 18th century cartographic work. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bellin was always careful to cite his references and his scholarly corpus consists of over 1400 articles on geography prepared for Diderot's Encyclopedie. Bellin, despite his extraordinary success, may not have enjoyed his work, which is described as "long, unpleasant, and hard." In addition to numerous maps and charts published during his lifetime, many of Bellin's maps were updated (or not) and published posthumously. He was succeeded as Ingénieur Hydrographe by his student, also a prolific and influential cartographer, Rigobert Bonne. More by this mapmaker...

Condition


Very good. Even overall toning. Transference. Blank on verso.

References


OCLC 64451984.