A LARGE FRENCH ENGRAVED MAP OF PARIS

Turgot's famous "Plan De Paris" is a bird's-eye or plan-perspective view, created at Turgot's request by Louis Bretez, member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Bretez was able to use his imagination to combine his knowledge of Paris buildings and was allowed to enter mansions, houses and gardens in order to take measurements and draw pictures. He worked for two years (1734-1736).
In the eighteenth century, the trend was to abandon portraits of cities (inherited from the Renaissance) for a geometric plan, more technical and mathematical. But the plan de Turgot goes against this trend, by choosing the system of perspective cavaliere: two buildings of the same size are represented by two drawings of the same size, whether the buildings are close or distant