Bordeaux Map 1832 City Plan Print - Quai des Chartrons, Quai des Salinières, Garonne

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge published this plan of Bordeaux in London in 1832, one of the city plans in its series of inexpensive maps meant to spread education widely. The catalog calls it a highly detailed town plan with two large views, one of the Quai des Salinières and one from the Quai des Chartrons, and describes it as one of the best town plans published in a commercial atlas in the nineteenth century. The Society, founded in London in 1826, issued maps cheaply so that readers of modest means could own them, and its city plans with their views are the ones collectors prize. It shows Bordeaux in 1832, two years after the July Revolution that put Louis-Philippe on the throne.

The two views place the plan on the river, with the Quai des Salinières along the Garonne waterfront and the Quai des Chartrons facing the quarter where the wine merchants had their warehouses. Many of those merchants were of English, Irish, Dutch and German origin, which is why the Chartrons has long been known as the wine trade's foreign quarter. Bordeaux was one of France's great ports, shipping the wines of the Médoc and the Gironde to Britain and the colonies, and the stone bridge across the Garonne, opened in 1822, was the proud new link between the city and the right bank. The river curves around the city in a crescent, which earned Bordeaux the name Port of the Moon. Together the views and the plan show a prosperous merchant city looking out on its river.

A wine lover, a family from the Gironde, or a collector of nineteenth-century city plans will find a distinguished gift here, perhaps for someone who has worked in the Bordeaux trade. TheMapVault also lists the same plan from 1870, a later issue, and this 1832 sheet is the earlier one, made in the reign of Louis-Philippe before the railways reached the city. It differs from the 1840 Marseille plan in the collection by showing a river port with views of its quays rather than a harbor port. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.