Carte topographique de la Forêt de Soignes et... Lot 540

Carte topographique de la Forêt de Soignes et de ses environs copié d'après la levée faite l'an 1769. Drawing, 49 x 69 cm, pen, brown and black ink, watercolour (some foldings, trimmed to the border). Framed (not unframed). Unique 18th-c. manuscript map of the Sonian Forest, the favourite hunting ground of the Habsburg Imperial family at the southeast edge of Brussels. According to the title, the map was drawn after Leopold Cogeur's survey of the area by order of Ferraris in 1769, and engraved after the original drawings by Antoine Cardon. However, the map is oriented to the southwest instead of the southeast, and has some remarkable adaptations such as the presence of the Brussels Park, that was newly designed and laid out between 1776 and 1783. As a matter of fact, the topographical rendering resembles that of the Cabinet Map (1777) and might even be of a later date. Ref. Lemoine-Isabeau, Cl. - La carte de la Forêt de Soignes par Ferraris et Cogeur (1767-1770), in RBHM, XX, 3-4, 1973, pp. 258-271.