Small chart of the British Isles with showing mainly coastal detail and with three prominent Meridians, London, Paris and "Cape Lizard" actually Lizard Point on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall. This is a reduction of Bellin's large map of the British Isles. Initially, it was issued as a five sheet map, but then reduced to a smaller format for the Neptune Francais. In that format, it was issued even after the Revolution in the very late eighteenth century. This present version is the smallest.

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin was one of the greatest
18th century map makers. He specialised in hydrography and was appointed to the
French Hydrographic office at the young age of 18 in 1721. Twenty years later
he was named the first “Ingenieur de la Marine” for the “Depot des Cartes et
Plans de la Marine” as well as Hydrographer to Louis XV of France. Over a fifty
year career, he published a multitude of important maps often from first hand
sources provided by naval officers, merchants and government sources. His level
of access was extraordinary. As well as publishing his own atlases, he was a
contributor to many seminal French works on exploration, including Abbee
Raynal’s “Histoire des Deux Indes”, Abbee Prevost’s “Histoire Generale des
Voyages” and Pierre de Charlevoix’s “Histoire et Description Generale de la
Nouvelle France”.

In 1762, Bellin decided to publish one of his most
popular and accessible works: “Le Petit Atlas Maritime”. The work came out in
1764 in five volumes and proved extremely popular. Many of the maps were
reduced versions which Bellin had either contributed or published previously. The five volumes usually contain between 575 and 590 maps with
variations noted between individual examples. As the preparation took only two
years, it is very likely that Bellin had a majority of these copper plates
already available. The initial financial support for the atlas was from
Etienne-Francois, Duc de Choiseul, a highly placed French politician who was
credited for strengthening both the army and navy. Due to its accessibility, he
perceived the ”Petit Atlas Maritime” as a method of publicising both the work
of the “Depot de la Marine” and the Navy to the general public. Bellin includes
a long dedication to Choiseul on the front of each volume.

For collectors today, the work presents one of the
widest selection of extremely desirable smaller maps. They provide clear,
concise and attractive geographical records of some of the most inaccessible
and exotic areas of the world in the mid-18th century. Bellin was part of a
group called “Les Philosophes”, the French counterpart to the pioneers of the
English Age of Reason and his maps are a lasting legacy from the Age of French
Enlightenment.

Original
colour. [GB2078]