An important milestone in the history of cartobiliography: the detailed and comprehensive catalogue of the inventory of one of the most successful of Paris’ mapsellers of the second half of the eighteenth century, and successor to Delisle and Buache. Listing nearly 500 individual maps (sold separately and bound), and globes, the catalogue includes a ‘Suplement au present catalogue’ appears as a paste-over at the foot of the last page, listing another thirteen atlases and maps. Some of the first maps listed in the main catalogue have been scored out in a contemporary hand, or renumbered, suggesting that they may have been currently unavailable, or not as shown.

Jean-Claude Dezauche (c1745-1824), engraver, editor, publisher, and ultimately seller of maps, began his career publishing music in the early 1760s. In June of 1780, he bought the cartographical archive of Guillaume Delisle and Philippe Buache, from Jean Nicolas Buache de la Neuville, Phillipe’s nephew, which he edited and reissued from his rue des Noyers address from 1781. Shortly thereafter, he gained a monopoly on the sale of charts produced by the Depot de la Marine, under the title ‘l’entrepôt général des cartes de la Marine’. In August and November of 1780, and 1781, he published catalogues of his inventory, as here. In 1791, he was made Geographe du Roi, and from August of the same year, a Member of the second Electoral Assembly of Paris. He was succeeded by his son Jean-Andre Dezauche. (BnF).

Rare: OCLC records only two examples of this particular catalogue, one in Bern and one at the BnF; only one other example appears in available auction records, in 2016.