Chatelain, Atlas Historique Frontispiece, dated 1719, hand color, beautiful

Description

Chatelain, Henri Abraham.
Frontispiece from one of his
Atlas Historique
volumes
,
dated 1719
.
Lavish, decorative,hand-colored exemplar with characteristic continental figures, symbols, flora and fauna--with ships of exploration and discovery in the bay.
Henri Abraham Chatelain (1684-1743) was a Huguenot pastor of Parisian origins. Chatelain proved a successful businessman, creating lucrative networks in London, The Hague, and then Amsterdam. He is most well known for the
Atlas Historique
, published in seven volumes between 1705 and 1720. This encyclopedic work was devoted to the history and genealogy of the continents, discussing such topics as geography, cosmography, topography, heraldry, and ethnography. Published thanks to a partnership between Henri, his father, Zacharie, and his younger brother, also Zacharie, the text was contributed to by Nicolas Gueudeville, a French geographer. The maps were by Henri, largely after the work of Guillaume Delisle, and they offered the general reader a window into the emerging world of the eighteenth century. -- Barry Ruderman
300 years old! Frame-able!