1739 Paris, Portfolio

An extraordinary feat of Cartography Published by Etienne Turgot in 1739, our Paris map is one of the most decorative and celebrated maps ever made. Every street and building of the pre-Hausmann era is shown. Not a window, chimney-piece or turret has been omitted. Today’s suburbs were yesterday’s orchards. Windmills dotted the landscape. Its creation was a Herculean project that took over five years to complete. Turgot’s Plan de Paris (in 3 wall scrolls on fabric, or as a 25 sheet art paper portfolio) is a remarkable technical achievement, a flight of the imagination created many years before the first manned balloon flight and the invention of photography.