Turgot

54315 — Paris: 1734-39. FIRST EDITION. 20 original engraved double page sheets each c. 52 x 80 cm here presented as 20 framed panels each measuring c. 56 x 85 cm giving a total wall space of 280 x 340 cm. A fascinating and colossal view of Paris and amongst the greatest city views of all time. Turgot's map of Paris is possibly the most ambitious urban mapping ever undertaken. This map shows the whole of 18th century Paris and offers an expansive perspective on the city before Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann's 19th-century redesign. Turgot who held the mayor-like office of Prevôt des Marchands de Paris commissioned Louis Bretez and Claude Lucas to produce this map. Oriented to the east on an axonometric projection this map is best understood as an aerial view where in every building window tree shadow and park are shown from an equidistant aerial perspective. In order to produce the thousands of sketches and surveys required to complete this map Bretez was issued a permit to enter every building in Paris. It took the team nearly five years of exhaustive sketching and surveying to assemble this masterpiece. A Monumental Achievement With unprecedented access to the properties of Paris and an official mandate Bretez achieved outstanding detail and accuracy. The buildings of Paris are presented as one would have seen them at the time. The Louvre the Tuileries Garden Notre Dame Cathedral and the Champs Élysées can all be easily recognised. The Bastille the flashpoint of the French Revolution which would start 58 years later is depicted as well. Michel-Etienne Turgot 1690-1751 Louis XV's Prévot des Marchands commissioned this plan in 1734 from Louis Bretez a sculptor painter and perspective specialist who used the conventional bird's-eye representation isometric projection. The stunning result shows maps with great and decorative detail being an important record of the architecture and gardens of Baroque Paris the world capital at the time. This was the last major example of this type of plan. Turgot was chief of the municipality of Paris as provost of merchants the equivalent of today's mayor. He was the father of the famous economist and statesman Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot whom history remembers chiefly as an early advocate for economic liberalism. Turgot was motivated to commission a map of Paris by his will to champion the reputation of the city for Parisian provincial or foreign elites. As such he asked Louis Bretez a French architect cartographer and professor of perspective who belonged to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture to draw up the plan of Paris and its suburbs. Over his two years of work 1734-1736 Bretez was granted access to all the houses and gardens he needed to visit in order to take the relevant measurements. Paris: 1734-39 unknown