Spain & Portugal Map 1863 French Atlas Print - Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia

Eugène Andriveau-Goujon of Paris published this Espagne et Portugal, number 28, in the 1863 new edition of his Atlas classique et universel de géographie ancienne et moderne, an atlas of fifty maps adopted by the Minister of War for regimental libraries. The sheet measures 62 by 46 centimeters at a scale of 1:2,075,000 and is hand colored, showing political and administrative boundaries, roads and railroads, with relief in hachures and a legend. The catalog credits Smith and Gerin as engravers, P. Rousset for the lettering and Mme. Fontaine for the water. It shows the peninsula in 1863 as a large French atlas page of the Second Empire, lettered in French and drawn on a generous scale.

In 1863 Spain was ruled by Isabella II, and Portugal by Luis I, who had come to the throne in 1861 after the death of his brother Pedro V. The railroads that the map marks were reaching across the peninsula, among them the lines radiating from Madrid, which had reached Alicante in 1858 and would reach the French frontier at Irun in 1864. France under Napoleon III took a close interest in its Pyrenean neighbor, and an atlas adopted for army libraries had a practical use for such maps. Spain and Portugal appear in different colors, and the provincial divisions of each country are marked by hand-colored boundaries, so that the administrative geography can be read at a glance.

A collector of French atlas cartography, a student of the Second Empire, or a family with roots in Spain or Portugal will find a substantial gift here. TheMapVault's Stanford sheet of 1882 shows the peninsula on a smaller page at 1:3,700,000, whereas this French sheet of 1863 is drawn at the large scale of 1:2,075,000 on a double-page spread, with roads and railroads in the foreground. 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.