Attractive pair of hemispheric maps. Jean Baptiste Bourguinon d'Anville, geographer to King Louis XIV, was among the most respected cartographers of his day. He was an early advocate of leaving blank spaces on maps where knowledge was insufficient.

In the Western Hemisphere, the northwest coast of North America is largely blank except for references to the supposed discoveries of Admiral de Fonte. A dotted line depicts the R. courant a l'Ouest connecting Lake Winnipeg with the Pacific. The Russian discoveries are shown with a rough outline of Alaska. In the Eastern Hemisphere, the southwestern coast of Australia has not been defined, but Van Diemen’s Land still appears to be connected to the mainland. New Guinea is also incomplete with several notations concerning the recent discoveries there.

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Condition: B

Both sheets are on watermarked paper with a few fold separations that have been closed on verso with Japanese tissue and light toning along one fold. There are some small wormholes in each sheet, most of which have also been closed with Japanese tissue.