1930 Coulton Waugh Pictorial Map of Cape Cod, Massachusetts

A visual celebration of Cape Cod's maritime history and identity.

This is the small-format edition of Frederick Coulton Waugh's 1930 pictorial map of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Filled with sailing ships, sea creatures, shipwrecks, and historical vignettes, it celebrates the Cape's maritime identity through a lively combination of geography, local history, and decorative illustration. Elaborate borders and a prominent Mayflower cartouche frame a peninsula defined as much by its seafaring traditions as by its towns and roads.

A Closer Look

Coverage embraces all of Cape Cod and portions of the adjacent Massachusetts coast, including Plymouth, Duxbury, and Buzzards Bay. Towns and roads provide a geographic framework for illustrations and annotations recalling the region's nautical heritage. Shipwrecks, the arrival of the Mayflower, and a 'horrible sea serpent' share space with coastal landmarks, weaving history and maritime lore into the landscape.

The central cartouche features the Mayflower accompanied by two armored Pilgrims. Across the upper and lower borders, stylized coastal scenes incorporate ships, lighthouses, and buildings. The side borders combine seashells with portraits of six famous vessels, including the Rose Dorothea at lower right. The border's bold, woodcut-style treatment gives the composition a distinctive graphic unity.

A columnist in a local weekly wrote of Coulton Waugh and this particular map:

Coulton Waugh was the son of noted marine painter Frederick Waugh. The two Waughs differed artistically, yet they shared a love of the sea and were on the best of terms personally. Coulton was a professional sailor and made scale drawings of historic ships, designed fabrics, and made decorative maps and charts…Coulton Waugh was considered to have revived, if not originated the art of decorative map making when he exhibited a large map of silk in 1918 at the International Silk Show in New York City. His map of Cape Cod is one of the most decorative ever prepared. The central cartouche shows the Mayflower and two Pilgrims in armor. The border was reproduced from a drawing cut with a knife in the wood-block technique. The top and bottom borders are of a stylized Cape Cod landscape and the sides borders are decorated with the images of six famous ships. The Rose Dorothea appears in the lower right hand corner.

Publication History and Census

Colton Waugh published this map in 1930. We note some examples with color, and others, as here, without color, but all in the same edition. The map was also issued in a larger-format deluxe edition measuring 18x26 in (c.f. CapeCod-waugh-1930-2). All examples are scarce.

Cartographer

Frederick Coulton Waugh (March 10, 1896 - May 23, 1973) was an American artist, painter, and writer based in Provincetown, MA, and later Newburgh, New York. Waugh was born in Cornwall, England. He immigrated to the United States in 1907 and settled in Philadelphia with his father, maritime painter Frederick Judd Waugh (grandson of portraitist Samuel Waugh). Coulton enrolled in New York's Art Students League, where he studied with George Bridgman, Frank Dumond, and John Carlson. In 1916, he took work as a textile designer before moving to Provincetown in 1918 to open a model ship and hooked rug shop. Coulton is best known for his comic strip Dickie Dare and his book The Comics, a comprehensive study of comic strips that traces their history. Coulton also taught art, wrote instructional and educational art books, and edited home study course art textbooks. A professional sailor, he drew historic ships and created decorative nautically themed maps. His 'serious' paintings, first displayed at the Hudson Walker Gallery in New York, were, according to one writer, 'enough to give his father's admirers the jitters.' In cartography, Waugh is known for several pictorial maps, including a 'Map of Silk,' Provincetown (1924), Cape Cod (1926), Cape Ann (1927), Old Cape Cod (1930), Long Island, and the Hudson River (1958). He also issued a map of California (1940) in collaboration with his wife, Odin Burvik (aka Mabel Burwick).   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Blank on verso.