French resources on ships and boats 19th century et. al.

[OldSaltf]

The site gallica.bnf.fr offers various files related to ships and boats, french and other. There is e.g. a collection of etchings depicting french warships around 1800.

 

Marine Française

 

It takes a while to load (seems to be quite a big file). You see the first page and on the right hand side there is a small menu with a download icon (an arrow pointing downwards into a sort  of file drawer). On the left hand side some more books appear, some by the famous naval historian Edmond Pâris. One of the works by Pâris is a treatise on south east Asian boats.

 

Boats of south east asian people

 

There is probably a lot more there. To search stuff you can use a search term with the site: qualifier (note colon behind the word site).

if you enter:

 

bateaux site:gallica.bnf.fr

 

you get a plethora of results. If you use the site qualifier in the above manner you restrict results to just the specified site.

 

Edited January 13, 2024 by OldSaltf

[Harvey Golden]

Thank you-- some very hard-to-find material there!  The link to South East Asian boats is to his study of 'extra-European' boats-- covering the rest of the world.  It doesn't seem to have the engravings (issued separately), but here they are for any interested: 

https://archive.org/details/essaisurlaconstr02pris/page/n11/mode/2up  This is probably one of the finest world-survey of watercraft; I don't think anything since has come close to it, even despite its areas of weakness. 

[wefalck]

There are thousands of books, photographs, prints etc. on that site - after all, it is not just a 'site', but the digital portal of the French National Library!

 

Don't look for ship's drawings, these are either with the Service historique de la Defence (SHD) in Vincennes (late 19th century to present) or with the Musée de la Marine in Paris (everything older than late 19th century).

[pollex]

Don't forget to peruse the site that published the late Jean Boudriot's drawings and books. 

there are (were?) a few  publications like the Xebec and other Mediterranean vessels listed.

23 Jan'24 Pollex Calgary

[wefalck]

ANCRE.fr