35 - ROBERT DE VAUGONDY, Gilles and Didier.

ROBERT DE VAUGONDY, Gilles and Didier. Universal Atlas by Mr. Robert, Royal Geographer, and by Mr. Robert de Vaugondy, his son, Royal Geographer. Paris: Published by the authors and Boudet, 1757. Folio (50.5 x 36.5 cm). Old fawn half-basane, spine with 6 raised bands, title label in garnet morocco, gilt title, red edges (defects including very worn corners, torn caps, some soiling and stains along the margins of the maps; a tear without a square, repaired on the colophon page; one map repaired along the margin; a foxing spot and a small lateral tear on the frontispiece, which lacks the list of subscribers on pp. 35–40). One of the most precise and elegant French atlases of the 18th century, of which 1,118 copies were sold by subscription. It consists of a large allegorical frontispiece title page engraved by Bacquoy, 34 pages of explanatory text in two columns, and 108 maps mounted on tabs, most of which span two pages, as well as 8 additional maps, for a total of 116 maps engraved in black on copper. Each map is adorned with a decorative cartouche, designed by Pierre-Philippe Choffard and engraved by Elisabeth Haussard, and the boundaries are colored. The King’s geographer, Gilles Robert (1688–1766), conceived this atlas, drawing on material acquired through the purchase of Nicolas Sanson’s collection and conducting new research in collaboration with his son, Didier Robert de Vaugondy (1723–1786). The maps were meticulously engraved based on the most up-to-date knowledge of the time and served as a reference throughout the second half of the 18th century. In particular, this atlas contains several important maps of the Americas (North America, Canada, the English colonies, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South America, the Greater and Lesser Antilles, Saint-Domingue, and Martinique) as well as the Middle and Far East (European Turkey, Western Asia (Russia), Eastern Asia (Russia), the East Indies archipelago, China, Japan, etc.). Cohen, 589.