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Six double-page engraved plans and thirty double-page engraved maps and plans mounted on tabs. All thirty maps have been outlined in color by a contemporary hand, and one (map 18, the French Empire) folds out to 33¼x31¼" (845 x 793 mm). (Folio) original French half sheep over pink paste paper boards, navy morocco spine label lettered in gilt, edges sprinkled blue, parchment corners. Manuscript map numbers stenciled on blank rectos. Second Edition.

A handsome copy of Vaugondy's "Study Atlas, For the Instruction of the Young" edited and corrected by Vaugondy's successor, C.F. Delamarche. Giles Robert de Vaugondy and his son Didier Robert de Vaugondy were the leading mapmakers in France in the eighteenth century, most famous for their production of the revolutionarily accurate Atlas Universel (1757), as well as for their spectacular terrestrial globes. The Vaugondys produced several study atlases in the late eighteenth century, and another folio atlas with this title in 1797-98, but with only thirty-five maps and plans. This updated edition of Vaugondy's Atlas d'Étude is undated, but given the political situation of several of the maps -- and in particular, the extent of the French Empire -- we can surmise that the atlas was produced at the height of Napoleon's reign. An historically interesting educational artifact and beautiful early nineteenth century atlas, Delamarche's undated version of Vaugondy's Atlas d'Étude is also rare at market. ABPC and Americana Exchange report that in the past three decades just two copies of the work have come up at auction, only one of which was complete. Phillips 3530 (the 1797-98 edition).