Map of the eastern Azores, namely São Miguel, Santa Maria, and the Formigas islets.

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 selections 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.

These are the eastern islands of the strategic archipelago held by the Portuguese in the Atlantic. They were used by many nations as staging points for their voyages both across the Atlantic and to the Indian Ocean.

Original colour. [AFR6282]

Original colour. [AFR6282]