Researchers of the Moscow Kremlin Museums have introduced into scientific discourse an atlas that contains 38 engraved maps. It used to be kept in the Scientific and Reference Library of the museum. The museum workers found out that these were maps of the 1730s by Guillaume Delisle -  the chief royal mapmaker of France.

The atlas had no title page and printer’s marks, it was covered by a simple cloth board of the mid-20th century, typical of the bookbinding workshops of that time. In 1958, a librarian described this edition as “Atlas, Amsterdam” for the library catalogue without marking the year of its publication. Later, there appeared the information that it comprised also the maps of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. This large-scale edition did not draw the attention of researchers for more than half a century.

Things have changed while preparing the exhibition from the Moscow Kremlin Museums ‘Four Centuries of the Russian Tea. The Great Gift of Celestial Kingdom’ that is to open in the State Historical Museum of the Southern Urals in Chelyabinsk in October 2024. Looking for suitable materials, the museum librarians have studied all available maps and atlases of the book fund, among which the above-mentioned album with maps was found. The researchers started their thorough examination. Maps were accomplished in the painted engraving technique; this method and the quality of paper allowed supposing that they belong to the 18th century.

Further research gave the opportunity to attribute the discovered maps as the part of ‘The New Atlas’ by Guillaume Delisle – ‘Atlas nouveau, contenant toutes les parties du Monde, ou sont exactement remarquees les empires, monarchies, royaumes, etats, republiques, &c. Par Guillaume de l'Isle. Premier Geographe de sa Majeste’, published in Amsterdam in the 1730s.

Guillaume Delisle was the principal royal mapmaker of France. When publishing ‘The New Atlas’, he used various data, acquired from travellers and mapmakers from the whole world, thus contributing and specifying the cartographic information known at his time. After the death of Guillaume Delisle, the publishing house ‘Covens & Mortier’ launched the publication of ‘The New Atlas’. Starting from the 1730s, ‘Atlas Nouveau’ was published many times in different versions. The researchers established that 38 maps preserved in the museum library belong to one of the earliest publications of ‘The New Atlas’.

One of the maps by Guillaume Delisle was restored specially for the exhibition in Chelyabinsk. It was ‘Tartaria’ – the West European title for regions from the Caspian to the Pacific Ocean. Later, all the discovered maps will supplement the museum fund for graphics.

Video on the event on TV channels ‘Россия24’ and ‘Культура’.