Detailed copperplate view of Nice from the north, most likely taken from the Monastere de Cimiez. It is from the third part of Nicholas de Fer’s ‘Les Forces de l’Europe’ first published in 1690. The third part was issued in 1692. De Fer (1646-1720) was born the youngest of eight children to the map seller, Antoine de Fer (fl.1644-d.1673), and grew to be one of the most well-known mapmakers in France in the seventeenth century. He was apprenticed in 1659 to the engraver Louis Spirinx at the age of twelve. Following the death of his father in 1673, Nicholas worked with his mother to continue the family business. On her retirement in 1687 she passed the business to Nicolas in exchange for a crown a week, unlimited bread, and a pint of wine per day.

His earliest known work is a map of the Canal of Languedoc in 1669. Arguably his most famous production is his wall map of America, published in 1698. It is renowned for the beaver scene. From 1690 he began publishing his own books such as ‘Les Forces de l’Europe’, and the ‘Petit et Nouveau Atlas’ in 1697. His first wall map, in 1694, was naturally of the world, and this was followed by a set of four continents. Pastoureau (1984) Fer IX Ac no. 61.