One-of-a-Kind (sold)

The legendary Blue Map of China under the Great Qing, one of the rarest, largest, and most aesthetically magnificent Chinese maps ever made. Published in 1811 (Jiaqing 16) in the Qing Dynasty, this Chinese map by Huang Qianren (黃千人, 1694–1771) is of utmost significance. Although ostensibly a map of China, the coverage of this map in fact extends to all lands touched by the influence Qing Empire, including England, Holland, Southeast Asia, Arabia, and Africa. As such it can be considered a political manifesto lionizing the unity and majesty of Qing China as well as a functional administrative document. (more details)

This is a beautiful example, in rich original color, of the world map of the 1486 Ulm Ptolemy: regarded as the most beautiful, printed world map of the 15th century. The present example is one of the finest to appear on the market in recent years. It appeared in the first edition of Ptolemy printed north of the Alps, and as such it provided the foundation for the revolution in geographical knowledge that occurred in the opening years of the 16th century. The 'world' as depicted here is mainly the Oikumene, the inhabited world as it was known to 2nd century Romans. It covers the 'Old World' from the islands of the Atlantic Ocean (both real and legendary) to Indochina, and from the Arctic to the Tropic of Capricorn. But this was also the first printed world map to depart from a purely Ptolemaic model, offering more contemporaneous knowledge: the early depiction of Scandinavia and Iceland. (more details)

The most complete extant example of Christopher Colles' 1794 unpublished and unfinished magnum opus, The Geographical Ledger, a loose-leaf indexed atlas of the United States whose sheets could be combined into a single enormous map. While not the first large-format American map, the Ledger, even unfinished, is unprecedented in its size and detail, and is the first general map to identify such items as early American forges (furnaces), mills, roads, farmsteads, property owners, roadside inns, fledgling settlements, early county configurations, etc. Although Colles is better known for his publication of the seminal 1790 Survey of the Roads, The Geographical Ledger was a work of boundless ambition that exceeded not only Colles' meager funds, but also the needs and values of the time. Nonetheless, the Ledger, even though unfinished, stands out as the masterwork of an unrecognized genius in pursuit of grandiose visions ahead of his time. (more details)

An outstanding discovery, this is the legendary c. 1247 Dili tu (墬理圖) terrestrial map of China. This is the earliest surviving example of one of the earliest known maps of China produced in the Common Era. The map was drawn by the Chinese polymath Huang Shang (黃裳). Huang's original wood carving, produced around 1194, has long been lost, but the map was engraved in stone in 1247 by Wang Zhiyuan (王致遠). This rubbing comes from that stone and dates to sometime between 1493 and 1602 - making it the oldest known extent rubbing of the Dili tu of China. The present map has been carbon-dated as having been created between 1493 and 1602, with supplementary ink testing verifying the results (these documents are available upon request and accompany the item). (more details)

A seminal 1806 (Jiaqing 11) Qing Dynasty Chinese map of utmost importance and rarity, this is the earliest known printing of Huang Qianren's (黃千人, 1694–1771) grand and spacious map of the Great Qing Empire of China. Huang Qianren first drew this map ... (more details)

A superb example, entirely complete, of Christopher Colles' 1789 - 1790 A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America. This is the First American Road atlas, wherein at least some of the plates represent the first American maps engraved by a female - Colles' 13-year-old daughter Eliza. Covering depictions from Albany, New York to Williamsburg, Virginia, Colles' atlas consists of a prospectus, a title page, and 83 separate strip maps, each covering some 12 miles of roads and offering invaluable detail about the natural and human landscape of late 18th-century America and was published in commemoration of the founding of the new republic in 1789.

Bringing European Cartographic Ideas to America

The maps appear in a strip-map style previously unknown in North America, but common in European road maps, such as the 1720 Britannia Depicta, or Ogilby Improv'd. Colles' issued the work in separate sheets that could be mixed and matched in a modular format, as needed. This modular format was his own innovation and challenged the user to interpret American roads linearly, as only a traveler can (and must).

The atlas includes 83 separate sheet maps, numbered 1-33, 40-86, and 45*, 46* and 47*. The sheets are laid loose in their original portfolio, with Colles' pastedown title, the original ties and the prospectus pasted to the inside of the front board, as found in most examples. The title page bears the date 1789. It is important to note that it was believed, until recently, that the maps were issued in parts through 1792. However, a hand-written note, laid in by an early-though sadly unnamed-owner, demonstrates that the maps were in fact complete and delivered to subscribers by 1790.

A Federalist Document

In the words of historian Trish Loughran, writing in the The Republic in Print (page 236),

Colles placed the year 1789 on the title page in order to make the book's publication coincide with the ratification of the Constitution and the formation of the new government. Indeed, Colles even goes so far as to begin the book's fictional journey on Plate 1 at New York's Federal Hall, which was in 1789, the new national capitol and the recent site of Washington's inauguration. In this way, the book makes the continual literal and symbolic reference to the newly invented nation-state even as it attempts to collect and contain a map to every known space within it in the highly singular space of a book. That it does so in such a way that each represented space can also be experienced locally, by the body hold up any given map on any given road, makes this an exceptional artifact in the production of federalist space.

The Work of a Mad Tinkerer

Colles originally intended to survey and map each and every road personally, and many of the maps are indeed based upon his own work. To accomplish this task Colles invented a new kind of perambulator - essentially a modified wagon wheel of a fixed circumference attached to counting cogs that could be used to record distances, a great improvement over the more traditional surveyor's chain. Colles found, however, that completion of the surveys was beyond his limited means, and so, relied upon existing work by military surveyors Simeon DeWitt and Robert Erskine for the maps of Maryland and Virginia. Ultimately, Colles never fully completed his atlas, with only 83 of the originally intended 100 maps published.

Engraved by Americas First Female Map Engraver - Eliza Colles

The maps were drafted by Colles, then engraved by Cornelius Tiebout, and later by his daughter Eliza Colles. It would seem that sometime in the middle of the engraving process, Colles had a falling out with Tiebout and recruited his 13-year-old daughter, Eliza, who may have been Tiebout's apprentice, to complete the engravings. Eliza thus became the first American female engraver. While there is no definitive proof that Eliza engraved for the Survey of Roads, many scholars note that the engraving style of the individual sheets does change, suggesting at least two different engravers were active. In particular the notion is supported by Walter Ristow (page 164) and Benson Lossing, who wrote in his History of New York,

Colles constructed and published a series of sectional road maps which were engraved by his daughter.

It should be underlined that Eliza also engraved another of Colles' extremely rare but monumental Geographical Ledger, which appeared in 1794 shortly after the Survey of Roads and bears Eliza's imprint.

A Financial Failure

Colles sold the maps found in his Survey of Roads by subscription, charging a quarter dollar up front, plus an eighth of a dollar for each delivered section of six sheets. (Nonsubscribers were charged 3 cents per sheet.) Despite a fair price (compare to Abraham Bradley's 1796 map of the United States at 3 1/2 - 5 dollars), accuracy, and fine workmanship, indeed ahead of its time, A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America floundered financially. The intended impact of the work; to promote travel, trade and real-estate transactions, failed to attract sufficient subscribers. As a result, the completed work was offered only in New York and Philadelphia. Deep in debt, Colles began to sell the completed sections of the work separately, with most buyers only acquiring those portions of the maps which they deemed most useful - thus the incompleteness of most known examples. (more details)

Two c. 1800 Siamese / Thai manuscript maps, drawn back-to-back on hand loomed cotton. The significance of these maps cannot be understated. They are likely working drafts for parts of a series of maps compiled for and presented to the Siamese kings sometime between 1783 and 1825. Collectively, they represent the only examples of indigenous Siamese non-religious cartographic visualization outside 17 Royal Maps (really just 11, see below). As working draft, these maps may predate the Royal Siamese Maps, possibly making them the earliest known Thai maps. (more details)

A foundational work of Renaissance cartography: this is the first, acquirable, printed map attempting a measured representation of the known world. The world map from the Rome edition of Ptolemy, in its 1478 printing it is preceded only by the unacquirable 1477 Bologna Ptolemy, the Medieval mappamundi of the Rudimentum Novitorum and the schematic 1472 Isidorus T-O map. Ptolemy's second-century innovation in representing the three-dimensional world with a grid on a projection, using mathematical methods to produce an accurate map, provided the basis of all modern cartography. Of all the early, printed versions of Ptolemy's maps, those produced for the Rome edition are considered to be the finest until Mercator's 1578 edition of the work. (more details)

This is a beautiful example of Cornelis De Jode's 1593 double-polar projection map of the world. It is among the most striking early world maps, and among the earliest to introduce the double hemispheric polar projection. Moreover, as a competitor to Ortelius' cartography, it is the sole obtainable map to preserve the innovative Guillaume Postel / Antwerp Unicum cartography. The map is moreover exceedingly rare, having been published in only a single edition. (more details)

This is an extraordinary 2-volume 1755-57 manuscript account of the War of the Quadruple Alliance, fought over Sicily, drafted by a participant, the II Marques de la Mina, Jaime Miguel de Guzmán Davalos y Spinola. It is Mina's personal copy, emblazoned with his arms, rich with masterfully executed foldout manuscript maps and tables, and features exceptional provenance. At the time of writing, this work was suppressed in Spain, as the loss of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape Passaro was a royal embarrassment, leading to it remaining unpublished for more than 140 years. The War of the Quadruple Alliance here represented, while not well known, had global ramifications, as it significantly diminished the Spanish navy, giving the British largely unopposed free reign on the colonial stage, particularly in the Americas. (more details)

A rare large-format 1871 Ottoman wall map of Arabia by military officer Yusbasi Husni (Hüsnü) Efendi. This is the earliest known large-scale Islamic wall map of Arabia. It was produced amid major administrative changes and cartographic developments, when the Ottoman Empire was securing its tenuous control of Mecca, Medina, and Yemen against both internal and external pressure. (more details)

An excellent example of William G. Bonner's rare, important, and monumental 1847 map of Georgia, here in its first edition, first state. When issued, this was the first major map of the state to appear in almost 20 years, and thus the first to represent Georgia with some approximation of its modern borders. It is, moreover, the first major map to illustrate the westward expansion of Georgia in the 1830s and 40s, with the annexation of Creek and Cherokee territory. It is also one of the few maps to clearly delineate the Georgia-Florida border dispute. (more details)

The first edition of Pedro Murillo Velarde's seminal 1749 history of the Philippines, complete with the desirable 1744 Bagay reduction of the 1734 Murillo-Bagay wall map of the Philippines. As a whole, the work is considered one of the most important productions in the history of Philippine printing and a unique Spanish-Philippine collaboration. The map is of particular significance, being the second major map of the Philippines published in the Philippines, engraved by the same hand that engraved the 1734 wall map, but with updates and revisions reflecting 10 years of discovery and development. (more details)

A superb, untrimmed, first-state example of Paolo Forlani's rare 1562 map of South America. It is the first large-scale, accurate printed map of the southern part of the Americas and is the only map of South America to be produced in the 'Lafreri School' of mapmaking. It is among Forlani's greatest works, and is a prize map not only for collectors of South America in particular, but also the Caribbean, Florida and Bermuda. Through its connection to the 1562 map of Diego Gutiérrez, it offers the most direct available link to contemporaneous Spanish mapping of her American colonies obtainable. (more details)

This is Matthias Quad's geographical atlas in its expanded 1608 edition, with 87 maps in superb original color and a distinguished provenance connecting it to the Lord Wardington Collection. Quad's atlas provided, in a small folio, a compilation of the most state-of-the-art maps of his era - some engraved by Quad himself, the bulk having been engraved by publisher Johan Bussemacher. The richly-colored atlas is beautifully bound in contemporary vellum and is the finest example of this work known. (more details)

A foundational work of Renaissance cartography: this is the first acquirable printed map of the Arabian Peninsula. Appearing in the Rome edition of Ptolemy, in its 1478 printing, it is preceded only by the unacquirable 1477 Bologna Ptolemy. Ptolemy's 2nd-century innovation of representing the three-dimensional world on a grided mathematical projection provided the basis of all modern cartography. Of all the early printed versions of Ptolemy's maps, those produced for the Rome edition are considered the finest until Mercator's 1578 edition. The present example is embellished with attractive old hand color. (more details)

This beautiful, extremely rare, separately-issued, double hemisphere carte á figures world map captures the most desirable elements of 17th century Dutch decorative cartography in one composition - including an Amsterdam imprint and the prominently displayed patronym of 'Willem Blaeu'. Both the imprint and the professed authorship were deliberately misleading: the map was engraved in Venice, not Amsterdam, and it has been attributed to the illustrator and printer Stefano Mozzi Scolari. The map is dated 1655. It is perhaps ironic that of the Dutch mapmakers from whom Scolari sourced this map, not one element appears to have been drawn from Blaeu, apart from his name. The engraver was not fully committed to deception: faintly in the lower right border is an additional, more honest imprint, 'in Venetia à S. Fosca'. Bifolco identifies this location as an engravers' shop associated with Scolari. (more details)

This the rare and influential 1531 Oronce Fine map of the world, portrayed using a double cordiform polar projection. This intricate woodcut map was both influential and - especially compared to other printed maps of its era - remarkably reflective of state-of-the-art cartographic detail. Rodney Shirley proclaimed it 'a rendering considerably in advance of any others printed earlier.' Many areas of significant interest are addressed in detail for the first time. The peninsular shape of Florida is clearly presented for the first time, and both Pineda and Cortez' mapping of the Gulf of Mexico are recorded here. This is the first printed map to refer to Magellan's voyage, naming a 'Mare Magellanicum' west of South America. The map breaks from Martin Waldseemüller's convention of presenting North America as separate from Asia: Fine's map incontrovertibly presents Labrador, Florida and the Gulf Coast as part of the Asian mainland; South America itself is depicted as taking the place of the Ptolemaic Great Promontory, or 'Dragon's Tail' that appeared on earlier maps like the 1507 Waldseemüller and the 1490 Martellus. Although including (but not naming) Magellan's strait, the map fails to account for the size of the ocean that circumnavigator revealed (despite naming that ocean - Mare Magellanicum.) (more details)

An extraordinary collection of nine 1874 manuscript maps detailing Taiwan and part of Fujian province, China. The maps were compiled and drafted by one, Sudo Katsuzō (湏藤 or 湏藤勝三) of Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, on an official or semi-official 1874 mission to Taiwan and thence to mainland China. Most of the maps in this set were compiled between March of and June of 1874 and are related to the 1871 Mundan Incident and the subsequent 1874 Taiwan Punitive Expedition. The Taiwan maps are primarily derived from maps drawn by the American Consul to Qing Taiwan Charles William (Guillaum) Joseph Émile Le Gendre's (August 26, 1830 - September 1, 1899) between 1867 and 1873. Others, particularly those of mainland china and Tamsui, are derived from British Admiralty Hydrographic Charts. In addition to the manuscript maps, the collection also contains its original binder and Sudo's application booklet requesting permission to travel from Taiwan to Fujian and Shanghai. (more details)

This is an attractive example of Petrus Apianus's 1520 map of the world, the earliest acquirable map to include the place name 'America.' In this respect it is pre-dated only by Waldseemüller's 1507 wall map, which exists in a sole surviving example held by the Library of Congress. Apianus was a well-respected and better-connected scholar, and in some respects his map's use of the name 'America' for the new world had broader impact even than the map on which the name first appeared. The map's projection and the lion's share of its geographical information derive from the 1507 Waldseemüller map of the world. In place of the hemisphere views present on the 1507 map, Apianus' displays in the upper decorative border an armillary sphere and a graticule, tools whose geometrical features allowed the composition of the map's projection. (more details)

A seminal 1821 (Daoguang 1) Qing Dynasty Chinese map of utmost importance and rarity, this is Huang Qianren's (黃千人, 1694–1771) grand and spacious map of the Great Qing Empire of China. Although ostensibly a map of China, the coverage of this map in fact extends to all lands touched by the influence Qing Empire, including England, Holland, Southeast Asia, and Africa. As such it can be considered a political manifesto lionizing the unity and majesty of Qing China as well as a functional administrative document. This edition of the map, 1821, was issued to memorialize the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor and celebrate the coming Daoguang reign. (more details)

A rare and extraordinary 1663 (Kangxi 2) xylographic map of Ming China, and indeed the entire world, by Wáng Jūnfǔ (王君甫) issued during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1661 – 1722). This massively proportioned map focuses on China, which, bounded on ... (more details)

A rare and extraordinary 1663 (Kangxi 2) xylographic map of Ming China, and indeed the entire world, by Wáng Jūnfǔ (王君甫) issued during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1661 – 1722). This massively proportioned map focuses on China, which, bounded on ... (more details)

The greatest and most impressive map of Shanghai we have yet seen. Issued in 1915, this is the Far Eastern Geographical Establishment / Edwin John Dingle / H. J. Fruin pictorial view and map of Shanghai. The map is a staggering 83 x 63 inches. The view looks on Shanghai from the east, at a high point across the Huangpu River in what is today the hip Pudong district. In includes the Bund, the Shanghai International Settlement, and the British and French Concessions, as well as the old Chinese City at left. It was issued shortly after the shortly after the 1911 Xinhai Revolution. One can follow Wusong Creek westward into the Horizon, which is illustrated with clouds. Inset maps detail Shanghai and Environs, Road Plan of Shanghai, The Nantao District, and The Rubicon District. (more details)

This is the only known example of Salvador Chofré's spectacular 1897 map of the Philippines - what must be considered the largest and most detailed Spanish map of the Philippines issued in the 19th century. The map was produced by Salvador Chofré, Manila's first lithographer at the height of his career, likely by government request in the face of the Philippine Revolution (1896 - 1898). The present example is likely a proof, as no other example or publishing history is known. What is known is that this example was acquired by American naval officer Henry Glass in 1898, when he participated in the invasion and surrender of Manila. The U.S. Navy reportedly reproduced it, very likely from this example, at a 50% reduced scale, although we have found no trace of said reproduction. The present map accompanied Glass when he returned to the United States, serving in San Francisco and attaining the rank of Rear Admiral, and was subsequently passed down through his family until we acquired it. (more details)

A remarkable c. 1750 Texas cartifact, this is a French hand-held fan, printed and hand colored on both sides, with one side bearing a map of Texas and illustrations celebrating the La Salle Expedition. The fan is a highly decorative and stylized chronology of the René Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (1643 - 1687) led French attempt to colonize Texas. It is a striking example of the fanciful representation that went into many depictions of European colonial enterprises, regardless of the facts. (more details)

An example of John Melish's important 1822 map of the United States. Melish's map is considered the most influential map of American published in the 19th century and is rivaled only by John Mitchell's 1755 map of North America as the single most influential ... (more details)

A masterpiece of 17th-century scientific engraving and publishing: This is the first edition of Johannes Hevelius' magnificent 1647 Selenographia. This is the first lunar atlas and one of the finest scientific books of the 17th century, in a beautiful example bound with two rare, printed letters regarding Hevelius' observations of the eclipses of November 4, 1649, and April 8, 1652. (more details)

A rare, bold example of the only medieval mappamundi or World Map available to the collector. The anonymous woodcut first appeared in the 1491 Jean Dupré Lyons printing of the Mer des Hystoires. It is derived from the 1475 world map inWelteltchronik Rudimentum Novitiorum (World Chronicle for Novices), a history penned by an anonymous clergyman but published by Lucas Brandis. The book's world map and its map of the Holy Land were described by Shirley as 'the first printed maps to try and show land forms and countries in topographical relation to each other.' The Rudimentum Novitorum, was a history of the world intended for novice monks. Consequently the maps included were not for travel so much as supporting the symbolic and moral elements of monastic education. The 1475 map from which the present map is derived is itself only predated by one other printed map, the 1472 Isidorus T-O map, and in terms of orientation and general structure these maps do share some commonality, but the mappamundi as a form is very different in content and purpose to the schematic T-O map. At the same time, mappamundi such as this would stand in sharp contrast to the systematic, mathematical maps produced according to the rules and conventions of Ptolemy which would form the underpinning of modern geography. A T-O map was a visual diagram for understanding the three parts of the known inhabited world in relation to each other, but contained no information about those places. Ptolemy's maps represented an effort to calculate the actual locations of specific places in the inhabited world, or oikoumenē, and to mark them on a graph approximating a conic section of the globe. The mappamundi would attempt no such precision, but would within its limits name the parts of the known world deemed most important - particularly to the map's Christianized context. (more details)

This is an extraordinary c. 1960 manuscript wall map of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth (Endor), composed entirely in Sindarin Elvish Tengwar. The map is a prodigious feat of scholarship that digs deeply into Tolkien's novels, both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and the supplementary Legendarium. The unknown author is not merely copying known works, but was actively interpreting the literature, often reading between the lines, adding accurate content, much of which was later confirmed. It is, moreover, an aesthetic masterwork, being perhaps the finest modern manuscript map of any kind we have encountered. (more details)

A seminal production, this is a fine first-edition, first-state example of Sir Robert Dudley's 1645 - 47 maritime map of the Gulf of Mexico, the first printed nautical chart of that region. It is also the first to be printed using Mercator's Projection - thus making it the first to be practical for actual navigation. Likewise it is also the first to accurately indicate prevailing winds and ocean currents in the Gulf. Coverage extends from the Pacific Coast of Mexico to eastern Florida, and from Galveston Bay (Texas) to modern day Belize and the Bay of Honduras), inclusive of the Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba. The whole is stunningly engraved in Antonio Francesco Lucini's masterful Italian baroque hand, complete with fine calligraphy and idiosyncratic styling. (more details)

This is a superb example of Heinrich Bünting's 1587 Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, the first complete work of biblical geography. This 1587 edition is the first to contain its full complement of figured maps of the continents. Africa, Europa Regina, and Asia-as-a-Pegasus first appear in this edition. Along with the famous cloverleaf world map, Die ganze Welt in einem Kleberblat, it is largely these figural maps for which this work is today most admired. Thus, this is the most desirable form in which this influential and long-lived book appears. (more details)