Depot de la Marine
1841

Antique French chart of the Maldive Islands

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Carte de Isles Maldives levee en 1835 / 1841

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Fine antique nautical chart of the Maldive islands, a island country and archipelago located in the Indian Ocean. This large old chart "Carte des Isles Maldives" was published by the French Depot de la Marine in 1841 (dated within) based on hydrographical data from Moresby and Powell, both officers in the British East India Company.

With a blue ink octagonal overstamp from the seller Antoine Roux, fils. (probably Mathieu-Antoine Roux 1799-1872) from Marseille, France. Roux was a hydrographer and painter with premises at "Quai Rive l'avenue Pres le Pharmacien in Marseille. " The Roux family was active in Marseille as hydrograpers and marine painters over at least three generations beginning with Joesph Roux. Number 942.The Depot de la Marine was established in 1720 under the French Ministry of the Navy to collect, preserve, and publish nautical charts, sailing directions, and maritime intelligence for the French naval service. Its purpose was both archival and practical: to centralize geographic knowledge gathered from voyages, surveys, and colonial administration, and to convert that information into standardized charts for navigation. Over the eighteenth century the Depot became the principal hydrographic authority of France, issuing engraved sea charts that incorporated data from naval expeditions, colonial outposts, and scientific voyages.

Following the French Revolution, the institution was reorganized and its chart production expanded, particularly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as global maritime competition intensified. The Depot de la Marine supervised official surveys, revised earlier charts, and maintained copperplates for continued reissue as coastal knowledge improved. In 1886 it was formally reorganized as the Service hydrographique de la Marine, the predecessor of today’s French hydrographic office. Charts bearing the Depot imprint remain important records of French naval activity, colonial expansion, and the technical development of European hydrography.