Assiette illustrant le département du Maine-et-Loire, Abbaye de Fontevrault, 1825-1826 (d’après Jean-Lubin Vauzelle, Les Monuments de la France, Paris, 1820, pl. 8).
Originally called Mayenne-et-Loire, the name of this department was changed to Maine-et-Loire in 1791, after the rivers Maine and Loire.
Lithograph printed by François Delpech c.1816 “Ruines de l’abbaye de Fontevreault près Saumur dépt de Maine-et-Loire”.

François Delpech was born in Orléans in 1778, an art critic for Le Mercure under the Empire. Opened a print shop at 3 Quai Voltaire in Paris on June 16, 1818, after having worked in Sèvres since 1816. He published more than 200 lithographic drawings by Vernet, Thiénon, Bourgeois, Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845), etc. In 1823, he began a vast series of portraits with facsimile handwriting, Iconographie des contemporains or Portraits of People Whose Names Are Particularly Connected, Either Through Their Actions or Their Writings, to Various Events That Took Place in France, from 1789 to 1829. These portraits were lithographed by Mauzaisse, Grévedon, Belliard, Monanteuil, and Bazin Jeune after paintings, sculptures, and drawings, several of which were also lithographed from life by Hesse, Dupré, and Maurin. He ceased his activity on August 2, 1825, when his wife took over, continuing to print and sell the work