Shop art print and framed art Turgot map of Paris by Claude Lucas

The Turgot plan is a plan of the city of Paris drawn between 1734 and 1739 at the request of the Provost of Merchants, Michel-Étienne Turgot, by Louis Bretez, a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture and a professor of perspective. Technically, it depicts Paris in axonometric "cavalier perspective" (isometric perspective) at a scale of around 1:400, giving it a size of 2.49 m × 3.18 m. In 1734, Michel-Étienne Turgot, then head of the Paris municipality (as provost of the merchants), decided to promote the image of Paris among the elite (Parisians, provincials and foreigners) by commissioning a new plan of Paris. He commissioned Louis Bretez, a member of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture and a professor of perspective, to draw a map of Paris and its suburbs. Under the terms of the contract, Bretez was required to make highly accurate observations and very faithful reproductions, and was even granted a licence to enter hotels, houses and gardens. The cartographer was contractually required to draw elevations of churches, buildings, fountains, squares and public monuments. Bretez worked on this for two years (1734-1736) and was paid 10,000 livres for his work. The plan, produced at around 1:400 scale, is very large (2.49 m × 3.18 m). In the 18th century, the trend was to abandon the city portraits inherited from the Renaissance in favour of the more technical and mathematical geometric plan. However, Bretez created a plan that was completely at odds with this [...]

 

This artwork is a poster from the classical period. It belongs to the plan - elevation - section style.

 

« Turgot map of Paris » is kept at Louvre, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Turgot map of Paris by Claude Lucas on Wikipedia.