LATE 18TH CENTURY, IN THE MANNER OF THE DELAMARCHE ATELIER

The Delamarche atelier was established around 1770 by Charles-François Delamarche (1740-1817), the most successful French cartographer and globe-maker of the late eighteenth century, and 'successeur de MM. Sanson et Robert de Vaugondi, Géographes du Roi et de M. Fortin, Ingénieur-mécanicien du Roi pour les globes et les sphères'. Fortin's business was subsumed into the Delamarche concern in 1795 and remained in under the family's direction until 1848. The characteristic style of Delamarche atelier with the ubiquitous red-painted edges and paper and pasteboard construction proved popular, and was presumably reasonably inexpensive to produce. Numerous examples of this style are found unsigned which may perhaps suggest other companies' endeavors to profit from the Delamarche success. It is by no means necessarily the case, however, that the atelier would have put their name to the entirety of their output. Terrestrial and celestial globes, armillary spheres and various forms of planetaria, signed and unsigned, can be attributed to the company.