This beautiful map is the southern sheet of Delisle's important mapping of the Caspian Sea from the surveys of Karl van Verden from 1719-21. Relief is shown pictorially and the sea is crossed with rhumb lines. Includes inset maps of the estuaries of the Astare, Sebdouri and Krudosel rivers on the Persian coast, and the gulfs of Sinsilenskoi and Astrabatskie on the coast of what is now Turkmenistan.

The Caspian Sea remained a mystery through much of cartographic history. It was originally thought to be a huge gulf in the northern ocean and was not recognized as a landlocked sea until the late medieval period. It was then presented in a variety of shapes and sizes, nearly always on an east-west axis. It was not accurately mapped until the early 18th century when the surveys of Karl van Verden were commissioned by Russia. In 1721, Peter the Great presented the French Academy a copy of the recently completed map by S.I. Soimonov and Karl van Verden. Delisle copied (in a reduced size) the original map with great care, translated the inscriptions into French, and printed it on two sheets for publication in the Academy's Bibliographie Générale des Travaux Historiques... and in his own atlases.

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Condition: B+

A dark impression on a faintly toned sheet with the watermark of a Maltese cross encircled in rosary beads. There is light offsetting and a small rust spot at top left.