ARABIA TURKEY MIDDLE EAST EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN 1746 LE ROUGE UNUSUAL ANTIQUEMAP

L'Empire des Turcs à Paris Par le Rouge.
                                    

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual 1746 George Louis le Rouge's copper engraved map of the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, with an inset continuing the coast of North Africa.
 
The map shows all of the Arabian Peninsula in detail with a large section set aside as "Bahrraim", near present-day Bahrain.

The map is filled with escellent topographic detail on cities, towns, rivers, lakes, deserts, reliefs and islands.
 
The cartouche shows foreign (European?) soldiers genuflecting in the tent of Middle Eastern ruler.

Date: 1746 ( undated )

Dimensions: Paper size approx.: cm 34,4 x 23,4

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains and wiremarkes. Map old original colored. Wide margins. Small foxing and browning. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images.

Mapmaker: Georges-Louis Le Rouge (c. 1707 - c. 1790) was a Paris based map publisher operating in the middle part of the 18th century. Le Rouge was born in Hanover Germany as Georg Ludwig, where he was educated and employed as a military engineer and surveyor. His father may have been the French architect Louis Remy de la Fosse (1659 - 1726), which would explain his early education in both engineering and draftsmanship. He assisted his father on a large-scale plan of Darmstadt, which he completed following his father's death in 1726. He may have remained in Darmstadt, but little is known of his life from 1726 - 1736, when he appears in Paris. Le Rouge acquired a position as military and civil engineer for King Louis XV and Louis XVI. Around this time, he Francophied his name to 'Le Rouge'. In 1840, he set up shop on the Rue Des Grands Augustins as an engraver, book publisher, and map publisher. He partnered with the English cartographer and engineer John Rocque (1709 - 1762), who became an important source for English maps, which Le Rouge re-engraved for French use. Despite being born German and adopting Paris as his home, Le Rouge was an ardent Anglophile and spent much of his time translating English books and maps into French. During his active period of roughly forty years Le Rouge produced thousands of maps and diagrams ranging from city and town plans, to atlases, plans of military campaigns and sea charts. He was a friend and correspondent of Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), with whom he produced the important 1769 Franklin/Folger Map of the Gulf Stream. Franklin, who met Le Rouge in Paris, writes that 'He [Le Rouge] is, I believe, a proper person.' He was awarded for his diligence with the impressive but unstipended honorific 'Geographe du Roi'. They may not have served him swell during the French Revolution (1789 - 1799), as his last known work was published in 1789, just before the storming of the Bastille. The exact date of Le Rouge's death remains a mystery. By most estimates, he is believed to have been alive in 1790, but may have lived as long as 1794.

Petrus Schenk (Pieter Schenck) the Elder (December 26, 1660 - 1711) was a Dutch engraver, globe maker, and map publisher active in Amsterdam and Leipzig in the latter half of the 17th century. Schenk, was born in Elberfield, Germany. He moved in Amsterdam in 1675, becoming the apprentice to Gerard Valk (Valck). In 1687, Schenk married Agatha Valk, Gerard Valk's sister and went into partnership with his brother-in-law under the imprint of 'Valk and Schenk'. Initially they focused on maps and atlases, acquiring the map plates of Jan Jansson and Jodocus Hondius in 1694. Later, in 1701 they moved into the former Hondius offices where they began producing globes. Valk and Schenk quickly became known for producing the best globes in the Netherlands, a business on which they held a near monopoly for nearly 50 years. Schenk's three sons, Pieter Schenk the Younger, Jan Schenk, and Leonard Schenk, all became engravers in their own right. Pieter Schenk the Younger inherited the business and ran his father's shop in Leipzig. His daughter, Maria Schenk, married Leonard Valk, the son of Gerard Valk, and continued to run the Valk and Schenk map engraving workshop in Amsterdam.