A manuscript map of Guadeloupe in the West Indies signed by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) lower right ‘Dressee par N. Bellin Ingenieur Ordinre. de la Marine. 1742’. Relief is depicted pictorially, it also records roads, churches, settlements, and bears numerous coastal names. The prime meridian provided is Paris.

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was one of the most important and prolific French cartographers of the mid-eighteenth century. The Dépôt des Cartes et Plans was founded in 1720 and the following year Bellin began working for them as the first Ingenieur Hydrographe de la Marine and became Royal Hydrographer. With access to the latest navigational reports, he produced a great many maps and charts of excellent quality compiling atlases of sailing charts for military and official use as well as for commercial publication. Bellin would produce a very similar engraved map in 1758 for the ‘Histoire Generale Des Voyages’ by Antoine Francois Prevost. In place of the title cartouch lower left the island of Marie-Galante could be displayed. Pastoureau (1984).