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Beaulieu, Sebastien de Pontault, Chevalier de: : La Bataille de Lens en Flandre [Pas-de-Calais] gaignee par l’Armee du tres Chres[tien] Louys XIIII Roy de France ed de Navarre, Comandee par Monseigneur le Prince de Conde, sur l’armee Espagnolle commandee par l’Archduc Leopold, le 20e jour d’Aoust 1648., h

Magnificent copper-engraved battle plan, in two sheets which can be joined (each comprising two sheets which have already been joined), platemarks 58 x 89 and 60 x 88.5 cms, black and white as issued, blank verso. The upper sheet is engraved by N. Cochin (two brothers, Nicolas and Noel, engraved pieces for this work) and the lower by J. Frosne, both after de Beaulieu. The upper sheet is a bird’s-eye view looking from the French positions towards the Spanish, within a wreath and flanked by a cockerel and an eagle. The lower sheet is in plan, presented on a lion-skin with inset views of Furnes (Veurne) and Ypres.

Sebastien de Pontault de Beaulieu, royal cartographer, military engineer and draughtsman known chiefly for “Le Grand Beaulieu”, an album of maps and plans published between 1676-1694 devoted to “the glorious victories of Louis the Great” between 1643-1692. Lens was one of the decisive battles of the Thirty Years’ War, fought in its closing stages, while Louis XIV himself was still a minor.

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