• Title : Carte qui represente les differentes connoissances que l on a eues des Terres Arctiques...Robert De Vaugondy...1773
• Size: 16 1/2in x 13in (420mm x 330mm)
• Condition: (A+) Fine Condition
• Date : 1773
• Ref #:  60048

Description:
This magnificent original hand coloured copper-plate engraved antique maps of 4 different time based views of Hudsons Bay & Eastern Canada by Robert De Vaugondy was engraved in 1773 - the date is engraved in the title - and published in the 1775 edition of Denis Diderots (1713-84) Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts).
The four historical views of Hudsons Bay, Canada are 2 x maps by Claude Delisle in 1700 & 1703, one map by Nicolas Sanson in 1750 and the fourth map by Henry Ellis in 1747.

Denis Diderot 1713 – 1784 was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment.
Diderot began his education by obtaining a Master of Arts degree in philosophy at a Jesuit college in 1732. He considered working in the church clergy before briefly studying law. When he decided to become a writer in 1734, his father disowned him for not entering one of the learned professions. He lived a bohemian existence for the next decade. He befriended philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1742.
Though his work was broad as well as rigorous, it did not bring Diderot riches. He secured none of the posts that were occasionally given to needy men of letters; he could not even obtain the bare official recognition of merit that was implied by being chosen a member of the Académie française. He saw no alternative to selling his library to provide a dowry for his daughter. Empress Catherine II of Russia heard of his financial troubles and commissioned an agent in Paris to buy the library. She then requested that the philosopher retain the books in Paris until she required them, and act as her librarian with a yearly salary. Between October 1773 and March 1774, the sick Diderot spent a few months at the empress\'s court in Saint Petersburg.
Diderot died of pulmonary thrombosis in Paris on 31 July 1784, and was buried in the city\'s Église Saint-Roch. His heirs sent his vast library to Catherine II, who had it deposited at the National Library of Russia. He has several times been denied burial in the Panthéon with other French notables. The French government considered memorializing him in this fashion on the 300th anniversary of his birth, but this did not come to pass.
Diderot\'s literary reputation during his lifetime rested primarily on his plays and his contributions to the Encyclopédie; many of his most important works, including Jacques the Fatalist, Rameaus Nephew, Paradox of the Actor, and D Alembert\'s Dream, were published only after his death.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - Original
Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 16 1/2in x 13in (420mm x 330mm)
Plate size: - 16in x 12 1/2in (405mm x 315mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (10mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
Hudson Bay (sometimes called Hudsons Bay, usually historically) is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada.
The Eastern Cree name for Hudson and James Bay is Wînipekw (Southern dialect) or Wînipâkw (Northern dialect), meaning muddy or brackish water. Lake Winnipeg is similarly named by the local Cree, as is the location for the city of Winnipeg.
English explorers and colonists named Hudson Bay after Sir Henry Hudson who explored the bay beginning August 2, 1610 on his ship Discovery. 170 On his fourth voyage to North America, Hudson worked his way around Greenlands west coast and into the bay, mapping much of its eastern coast. Discovery became trapped in the ice over the winter, and the crew survived onshore at the southern tip of James Bay. When the ice cleared in the spring, Hudson wanted to explore the rest of the area, but the crew mutinied on June 22, 1611. They left Hudson and others adrift in a small boat. No one knows the fate of Hudson or the crew members stranded with him, but historians see no evidence that they survived for long afterwards.
In 1668, Nonsuch reached the bay and traded for beaver pelts, leading to the creation of the Hudson\'s Bay Company (HBC) which still bears the historic name. The HBC negotiated a trading monopoly from the English crown for the Hudson Bay watershed, called Rupert\'s Land. France contested this grant by sending several military expeditions to the region, but abandoned its claim in the Treaty of Utrecht (April 1713).
During this period, the Hudsons Bay Company built several factories (forts and trading posts) along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as Fort Severn, Ontario; York Factory and Churchill, Manitoba). The strategic locations were bases for inland exploration. More importantly, they were trading posts with the indigenous peoples who came to them with furs from their trapping season. The HBC shipped the furs to Europe and continued to use some of these posts well into the 20th century. (Ref: Tooley; M&B)