Carte Chorographique Des Pays-Bas Autrichiens

[Mechelen (Malines): Joseph Dochez], 1778. HOUSED IN A CONTEMPORARY "BLOOK" - A MOTTLED CALF-COVERED WOODEN BOX MADE TO LOOK LIKE FIVE UNIFORMLY BOUND QUARTO VOLUMES (worn); each spine has one black and five gilt-lettered red calf labels; the top of the box slides off horizontally.

Ad I-II: COMPLETE and complemented by its fugitive illustrated Prospectus. This is the first printed large-scale topographic map of Belgium and Luxembourg, produced "in response to the shortage of accurate and reliable maps experienced by the military forces during the Seven Years' War" (Vervust).
            Closely associated with the Viennese Court and a skilled artillerist, Ferraris directed the survey from 1771 to 1775. "Its execution was headed by three members of his staff...who led as many as 178 members of the artillery corps...using only simple plane tables and surveyor's chains" (Bracke, History). Ferraris produced three 275-sheet manuscript maps - one for the Austrian Emperor, one for the Duke of Lorraine, and one for government archives. The sale of this engraved version was to subsidize the project.
            FERRARIS CREATED "THE EARLIEST CHARACTERISTIC SHEET TO A TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP" (Wallis & Robinson), illustrating and explaining the sixty-two symbols used here (sheet 1). The set also contains a large engraving of Ferraris presenting a map to the emperor (sheet 16), a bird's-eye view of Bruxelles (sheet 22) and assembly instructions (sheet 23).
            This set identifies two of the vendors of this monumental print. The Prospectus directs buyers to the Covens' shop in Amsterdam. The present copy of the Carte was purchased from Parisian map dealer Vignon and bears his circular etched label on four of the linen mounts.
            In good condition (some linen frayed at the folds; top and bottom of the wooden box fragile); the linen mount of each map has been signed in a contemporary hand Sorberio - ?François-André de Sorberio (or de Sorber, b. 1703), the Navarre parliamentarian.
¶Vervust, "Count de Ferraris's Maps of the Austrian Netherlands (1770s)" in Imago Mundi 68 (2016) 164-82; Bracke, "Ferraris Survey of the Austrian Netherlands" in The History of Cartography 4: Cartography in the European Enlightenment edd. Edney & Pedley 403-406 & figg. 238 & 749; Wallis & Robinson, Cartographical Innovations 248; De grote Atlas van Ferraris ed. Bracke passim; Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers. Revised Ed. II: 62-3.