Discriptions de Touttes les Pieces qui entrent dans La Construction d'un Vaiss[eaux] du Premier Rang lors quelles sont façonnée prestes de Mettre en Oeuvre leurs Liaisons et Nombre de Chacune.

Large copperplate engraving on two conjoined sheets, 482 by 685mm. Lightly browned, some edge chips, join opening head and tail, but overall very good. N.p. [Toulon], n.d.

Scarce and splendid explanatory broadsheet showing the parts of a ship, together with the number and dimensions of each part.

 

Within the table of dimensions is the statement "Faict a Toulon dans Lescolle de la Construction par François Coullomb Fitz [fils] avec Premision 1683 [sic throughout]". François Coulomb, a member of a Toulonnais ship-building dynasty, was the director of the École de Construction at Toulon, one of three established in the late C17th in order to standardize French ship-building. He was the builder of twenty-five ships at Toulon between 1689 and 1705, and the author of the manuscript Livre de Construction des Vaisseaux... [Bibliotheque Nationale] on which this plate is almost certainly based.We have been able to locate only one record for this piece in the Collection Chardey at Le Havre.

Stock Code: 91017