Auction Name: 2026 February 26 Historical Manuscripts & Texana Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 47061

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6328*47061

Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon Danville. Carte de la Louisiane. [Paris], 1752. 36 x 20 inches (sight), matted and framed to an overall size of 42 x 26 1/2 inches. Hand-colored in outline, relief shown pictorially. Danville's important mid-eighteenth-century map depicts the Gulf Coast from Apalachicola Bay to the mouth of the Sabine in Texas, with a large inset titled "Partie Superieure de la Louisiane," detailing the Mississippi River Valley from the Arkansas to Missouri Rivers. Largely derived from the manuscript maps of Valentin Devin, it was exceptionally detailed for its time, but still showed the limited European geographic knowledge of the Southwest. Portions of the coast are labeled, "peu connue" (little known).

One of the earliest large-scale printed maps of the Lower Mississippi and Gulf regions, d'Anville's Carte de la Louisiane was an essential reference for geographers. According to Ruderman, Thomas Jefferson acquired seven of d'Anville's maps in 1787, most certainly including this one, as he later noted its importance to Albert Gallatin.

Condition: Not examined out of frame. Lightly toned with smoothed folds. Foxing throughout.

Reference: Rumsey 2603.

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