Le Vieux Carre de la Nouvelle Orleans Over a Span of Many Years is Lucile Gillican’s exuberant love letter to the French Quarter, cast as a pictorial chronicle rather than a sterile plan. The familiar checkerboard of Burgundy, Dauphine, Royal, Bourbon, and Chartres is crisply staged between Decatur and Rampart, with St. Peter, St. Ann, St. Louis, and St. Philip stitching the blocks into intimate scenes. A theatrical compass rose tips its hat to the city’s maritime bearings, while a decorative border brims with local emblems that signal New Orleans’ layered past. As a city map, it is notable for translating the Quarter’s lived texture—its streets, stories, and seasonal rites—into a narrative geography that rewards both close study and imaginative wandering.

The cartouche of landmarks reads like a who’s who of the Vieux Carré. Jackson Square emerges as the civic stage, anchored by the spires of St. Louis Cathedral and flanked by the Cabildo and the Presbytère, while the French Market straddles Decatur in a bustle of stalls and river breezes. The old Ursuline Convent along Chartres and the shadowed allure of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop on Bourbon add ecclesiastical calm and piratical rumor. Just beyond Rampart lies a nod to Congo Square, where rhythms that shaped jazz once pulsed. Gillican peppers the quarter with local characters—musicians, maskers, café-goers—so that architecture and life mingle. It is a city map that doubles as a cultural atlas, positioning memory and myth block by block.

Though centered on the Quarter, the sheet gestures outward to the American Sector and the working riverfront, tying place to commerce and legend. Tchoupitoulas and Poydras summon the levees and warehouses; St. Charles hints at the storied streetcar line; Calliope and St. Mary mark the upriver seam where Creole town and modern city meet. Desire Street appears like a premonition of literary fame, while Charity and Robinson note civic and residential layers beyond the tourist gaze. Even Lalaurie St slips in as a wink to the Quarter’s darker folklore. The Mississippi’s crescent governs all, its curve implicit in Decatur’s sweep and the orientation of the compass rose. As urban cartography, the map excels by connecting the grid to the water, the port to the parlor.

Created in 1929, the work bears the hand and eye of Lucile Gillican, whose ties to Walter Boyer Gillican’s turpentine enterprise placed her at the crossroads of Southern industry and art. It was likely undertaken in the orbit of the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans, where design reform met Creole vernacular with brio. Co-authorship by Louis Elizabeth Andrews Fischer—a club member and accomplished illustrator—infuses the sheet with assured linework, saturated color, and an artisan’s respect for craft. Together they channel the Arts and Crafts ethos into cartography, celebrating iron lace, courtyard gardens, and stuccoed facades as civic ornament. The result predates formal preservation drives yet anticipates them, elevating the Vieux Carré from old neighborhood to treasured patrimony.

For collectors and connoisseurs of city maps, this piece shines because it fuses orientation with storytelling. Street names become a walking tour; vignettes turn corners into chapters; borders of fleurs-de-lis, masks, pelicans, and musical emblems frame a city that performs itself year-round. It captures an early twentieth-century New Orleans poised between storied past and modern momentum, preserving the feel of stoops and balconies as carefully as the whereabouts of squares and markets. Above all, it offers a richly legible portrait of the Vieux Carré’s fabric—social, architectural, and ceremonial—rendered with warmth, wit, and an archivist’s instinct, inviting the viewer to trace the Quarter not just as it is, but as it has been over many years.

Streets and roads on this map

• Burgundy St
• Dauphine St
• Decatur St
• Royal St
• Rampart St
• St. Ann St
• St. Peter St
• Tchoupitoulas St
• Chartres St
• Bourbon St
• St. Louis St
• Desire St
• St. Philip St
• St. Charles St
• St. Mary St
• Lalaurie St
• Charity St
• Robinson St
• Calliope St
• Poydras St

Notable Features & Landmarks

• Illustrations of key buildings and landmarks
• Decorative borders with cultural motifs
• Pictorial representations of local characters and scenes
• A compass rose
• Notable symbols associated with New Orleans

Historical and design context

• Created in 1929 by Lucile Gillican; co-authored with Louis Elizabeth Andrews Fischer (Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans).
• May have been commissioned to support the Arts and Crafts Club of New Orleans.
• Focuses on the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) in New Orleans, Louisiana.
• Thematic, pictorial style with illustrative details, bright colors, and a whimsical design.
• Themes highlight local culture, landmarks, and artistic elements.
• Reflects early 20th-century cultural and artistic evolution of New Orleans, showcasing architecture during the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 90in (230cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

Please note: the labels on this map are hard to read if you order a map that is 16in (40cm) or smaller. The map is still very attractive, but if you would like to read the map easily, please buy a larger size.

The model in the listing images is holding the 24x36in (60x90cm) version of this map.

The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.

If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.

Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.

This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.

This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.