Mortier's Atlas Noveau

MORTIER, Peter (1661-1711). Atlas Nouveav [Nouveau], Contenant Toutes les parties du Monde, ou Sont exactement Remarqués Les Empires, Monarchies, Royaumes, Estats, Republiques & Peuples qui sy trouuent á present. Par le Sr. Sanson Geographe ordinaire du Roy Presenté a Monseigêur le Dauphin Par son tres-humble, tres-obeissant, et tres-fidele, Serviteur, Hubert Iaillot Geographe du Roy. “Paris: Chez Hubert Iaillot Ioignant les Grands Augustins aux deux Globes” [but Amsterdam: Pieter Mortier], 1696–1700. Here is what AI says it’s worth: $41,908. Cost: Bonham’s, August 2020 - $£23,812.50. Two volumes in one. Broadsheet folio (23 13/16” x 19 7/8”, 604mm x 505mm): A-H1 χ1. 9 letter-press leaves, pp. [4] (Nouvelle introduction title, blank, Introduction title, preface), 1 2-16 (16pp. introduction); 2 (lives of ancient hermits, blank = “147”). With 147 engraved plates: an engraved title-page and an engraved frame for the table (with letterpress table pasted in), 2 double-page engraved tables, 19 engraved tables, 93 double-page engraved maps, 30 engraved maps, and 1 folding map — all (save one chart (39: “Echelle geographique”) and one double-page map (43: “Plan de la Ville… de Paris”)) with hand-color. Lacking the map of Namur; else collated complete against the list of maps. Bound in XIXc crimson half calf over red cloth. On the spine, seven raised bands. Title, author (Sanson) and date (MDCC) gilt to black calf in the second panel. Scuffed generally, with bumps to the extremities. Extensive marginal losses to the front-matter, and a large repaired loss to the final map (150, the Gulf of Venice). Map 115 (Austria) with two filled half-inch holes; map 136 (Danube) shaved at the head, 147 (letterpress lives of ancient hermits) with old fraying and loss at the fore-edge. Additional map of Northumberland (London: C. Smith; January 6th, 1802) pasted to the rear-paste down, with losses. A little soiled generally, but altogether a sound copy. With ink numeration in an old hand to the verso of most plates. Pieter Mortier (1661-1711; pron. “more-tear” rather than “more-tee-ay”) was the son of a French refugee who, after a brief stint in Paris, worked in Amsterdam as an engraver, mapmaker and bookseller; his illustrated bible is one of the great lavish works of engraving. While the Dutch largely dominated the XVIIc market for atlases, Jaillot, who had at his disposal the stock of Nicolas Sanson, was an exception; Mortier’s ingenious solution (with his partner Marc Huguetan) was simply to copy and to undercut him. Although Pastoureau concedes that there may in fact have been an agreement between Mortier and Jaillot, she deems the present work a piracy or “contrefaçon:” “toutes les planches sont gravées entre la fin de 1690 et le début de 1692… au début de 1692, le titre de l’atlas étant gravé, les associés se partagent les cuivres et conviennent que chacun peut alors tirer autant de cartes qu’il veut…” (“all the plates were engraved between the end of 1690 and the beginning of 1692… at the beginning of the 1692, the title of the atlas having been engraved, the partners share the copperplates and agree that each of them can print as many plates as they wish,” Pastoureau p. 234). The present copy is the second Mortier edition, with considerable changes to what maps are included. Most telling, perhaps, is the map numbered 76: a 1695 map depicting the encampments of the French army in the Low Countries. Though Dutch piracy of books published elsewhere is common for much of the history of European printing, the circumstances of the present work’s creation are striking. Nearly all of Europe — the Grand Alliance, of the Hapsburg lands, the Dutch Republic, England, Spain and Savoy — had banded against France in the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697). Thus the copying of the encyclopedic French Atlas nouveau by the Dutch is an act of cartographic espionage. The organization of the atlas, notably vol. II, with its single-page maps bound to face tables with place-names and other date, makes it uncommonly useful for the planning of military actions. The disingenuity of the work began before Mortier; Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (1632–1712) claims responsibility for the work both as the dedicator to the Dauphin and as the publisher, but all but three of the maps in the initial 1681 edition were in fact the work of his late predecessor, Nicolas Sanson (1600–1667). The work is nevertheless the first appearance of the word “atlas” in the title of a French book of maps. Pastoureau I E 1696 contrefaçon hollandaise.

Estimation:€35,768.04

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