La Moscovie

Key Properties

Source: according to the seller, the Nouveau Petit Atlas, 1714

Technique: Copper engraving, hand-coloured in outline and wash

Scale: Lieues d'Allemagne

Region: western Russia: Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, Moscow, Vladimir, Ryazan, Smolensk, and the Duchy of Polotsk

Condition

Hand-coloured. Good margins. The colour slightly offset to the verso; light spotting in the margins; a pencil note in the lower right margin.

References & Bibliography

Bagrow, A History of Russian Cartography up to 1800 (1975).

Pastoureau, Les Atlas français XVIe-XVIIe siècles (1984), for the Sanson atlases.

Description

A compact map of the heart of Muscovy as it was known in the later seventeenth century. It runs from the Gulf of Finland, Narva and Lake Peipus in the west to Rostov, Vladimir and Ryazan in the east, with Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, Moscow and Smolensk, the sources of the Volga, the Dnieper and the Dvina, and the forests and monasteries of the region. In the southwest the Duchy of Polotsk and part of Lithuania are outlined. The title is set in a draped cartouche in the upper right.

Historical Significance

Small atlases of this kind, derived from the maps of Nicolas Sanson, brought the geography of Russia to a wide French readership in the years when Peter the Great was turning Muscovy into a European power.