Manuscript fortification plan of Dunkerque, with a simple compass rose orienting north to the bottom left. Drawn in brown ink and delicately hand colored and embellished with two tiny sailing ships. Renau was a mathematician, military engineer and cartographer who worked on Blaeu's great atlas of city plans. The draftsman made pin-holes to indicate the ends of the straight segments in the drawings, which he then drew with a straight-edge. The manuscript atlas from which this plan came was dated 1651, although the plans may have been drawn later based on sketches and surveys made in 1651 after the Peace of Munster ended the Eighty Years' War in 1648. The paper stock is watermarked with a large shield enclosing a fleur-de-lys, surmounted by a crown, with a "4" and a "WR" at the base.

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Condition: A+