Plan de Narva

Near-contemporary plan of the Battle of Narva (1700).

This detailed plan of the Battle of Narva was published in Paris by Nicholas de Fer in 1705. The eponymous engagement took place just five years prior, in late November of 1700, and saw an army under 18-year-old Charles XII of Sweden route a numerically superior besieging Russian army in the Great Northern War.

The image, oriented with east at the top, shows the fortified town in modern-day Estonia surrounded by a ring of ‘80,000 Moscovites’, according to the decorative title cartouche in the upper left. It includes a scene of Charles and his soldiers trampling the ushanka-wearing Russians, while an angel holds aloft a banner reading ‘Virtute Non Numero’ (by virtue, not by number).

The rescuing armies of the King and General Welling are in blue at the bottom of the sheet, adjacent to a text box that provides a brief history of the wider conflict. It is enclosed by a second cartouche in which can be seen the Danish coat of arms and allegorical figures representing victory over the Holy Roman Empire.