Paris, Dien, 1788. Broadsheet (56.4 x 49.1 cm). With contemporary hand-coloured contours.

A very rare map of the French Caribbean island Guadeloupe, made by the French cartographer George Louis Le Rouge (1712-after 1790). In the lower right corner, a second map (same scale) of the French island Bourbon (now: Réunion) in the Indian Ocean, is added. The map shows hills and mountains, and nearly always named, rivers, settlements, islets, bays, churches and chapels, forts (either in use, or abandoned), battlefields and anchorages. Le Rouge was born in Germany and a friend of Benjamin Franklin (Geographicus website). He produced many fine, detailed maps. This one however, contains a curious name: the sea to the northwest is named Partie de Golfe de Mexique, but is actually the Caribbean Sea, a name then not in use. On one of Le Rouge's larger maps, we see the obsolete name "Mer du Mexique ou de Nouvelle Espagne", as part of the "Mer du Nord", for the same region. This map was published both separately (this edition), and, in 1753, as part of Desnos's very rare Atlas général; contenant le detail des quatre parties du monde principalement celui de L'Europe. (Paris, 1741-1762). Charles-Philippe d’Albert Duc de Luynes (1695-1758) was a French cavalry officer and historian. "He wrote an important memoir of life at the court of Louis XV" (French Wikipedia). Some small, skilful marginal repairs, otherwise excellent, clean, unmarked. Few copies known, e.g., Harvard, and in a few national libraries, including France, Belgium, and U.S.A., Library of Congress. We found only two auction records this century.