Devoirs de géographie, manuscript atlas with maps of France drawn by Eugénie Giraud while a 14-year-old student at the Elève des Religieuses de Sains-Charles, a commune in the department of Indre-et-Loire in central France, 1877. Title translates to: Geography homework. First part. France : Its mountains — Its waters ; Second part. Main productions of France in general. Oblong sketchbook of heavy wove paper with 20 maps drawn in ink, watercolor and colored pencil. Bound in block-stamped pebbled black morocco in blind and gilt - all gilt edges, gilt dentelles and marbled endpapers. Cover boards decorated with raised floral ornamentation. Front cover stamped "ALBUM" with letters made from gilded illustrations of logs. Collation: 2° : first part [34] pages, including 9 single-page maps; second part [24] pages, including 11 single-page maps; followed by [50] blank pages. In the first part of atlas, maps show international and administrative boundaries, topography, drainage, river basins and coastline. In addition, in the second part, maps feature natural resources - mineral and agricultural - via data visualization and pictorial illustrations. Maps accompanied by descriptive text and legends. All text and maps drawn by Giraud, with geographical accuracy and aesthetic delicacy. Her source is not known but she presumably worked from one or more of many of the European thematic atlases published in the mid-19th century. Such copying exercises, common in England, France and the United States, would have served multiple goals for young women, including reinforcing knowledge of geography, penmanship and drawing skills, as well as the patience and discipline required to execute such a sustained project, and perhaps a sense of patriotism.
pub_note
Devoirs de géographie, manuscript atlas with maps of France drawn by Eugénie Giraud while a 14-year-old student at the Elève des Religieuses de Sains-Charles, a commune in the department of Indre-et-Loire in central France, 1877. Title translates to: Geography homework. First part. France : Its mountains — Its waters ; Second part. Main productions of France in general. Oblong sketchbook of heavy wove paper with 20 maps drawn in ink, watercolor and colored pencil. Bound in block-stamped pebbled black morocco in blind and gilt - all gilt edges, gilt dentelles and marbled endpapers. Cover boards decorated with raised floral ornamentation. Front cover stamped "ALBUM" with letters made from gilded illustrations of logs. Collation: 2° : first part [34] pages, including 9 single-page maps; second part [24] pages, including 11 single-page maps; followed by [50] blank pages. In the first part of atlas, maps show international and administrative boundaries, topography, drainage, river basins and coastline. In addition, in the second part, maps feature natural resources - mineral and agricultural - via data visualization and pictorial illustrations. Maps accompanied by descriptive text and legends. All text and maps drawn by Giraud, with geographical accuracy and aesthetic delicacy. Her source is not known but she presumably worked from one or more of many of the European thematic atlases published in the mid-19th century. Such copying exercises, common in England, France and the United States, would have served multiple goals for young women, including reinforcing knowledge of geography, penmanship and drawing skills, as well as the patience and discipline required to execute such a sustained project, and perhaps a sense of patriotism.
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