Posts from — April 2007

A well written article in todays Washington Post entitled, Chicago Exhibit to Feature Famous Maps, describes an exhibition called “Maps: Finding Our Place in the World,” opening November 2, 2007 and running through January 28, 2008 at Chicago’s Field Museum. It then will move to Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum from March 15 through June 8, 2008. The exhibit will feature more than 130 famous or prized maps. Exhibit organizers are billing it as the most ambitious cartography exhibit ever in North America. The exhibit will cover how maps have changed over the centuries, and how various cultures have chosen to depict the world.

Maps from outside the European tradition include a deerskin map drawn by members of an American Indian tribe, where circles connected by lines indicate political ties among communities.

Pieces confirmed for display include a 3,500-year-old clay tablet detailing walls, gates and palaces in the town of Nippur in what is now Iraq; three drawings by Leonardo da Vinci rarely lent from the English royal collection; the map Charles Lindbergh carried with him on his history-making flight from New York to Paris; and drawings by author J.R.R. Tolkien of his fictional Middle-earth.

An AP wire story mentions other exhibit highlights, including:

Fragments of an ancient Roman map cut out of marble.

A map of central Italy created by Leonardo da Vinci. He used color to indicate changes in elevation, a technique that was not regular used until centuries later.

The Mercator Map, first printed in 1569, created by mathematician and cartographer Gerard Mercator.

A map drawn by John Mitchell, a physician-botanist, in the 1750s that sought to reinforce British control in the New World. When British and American negotiators met after the Revolutionary War to draft a peace treaty, they used Mitchell’s map to trace the boundaries of the United States.

A map attributed to Thomas Jefferson, outlining the proposed western states.

A map drawn in 1837 by an Ioway Indian, charting the historical movement of his tribe and staking out territory rights.

A map from 1849 used by settlers following the California Trail.

A glove created for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London on which a map of London is printed.

The first poster-sized map of the London Underground. Dating to 1933, its graphic simplicity made it a design icon.

[tags]antique map exhibits, antique maps, antique atlases[/tags]

The Des Barres’ four-volume edition of The Atlantic Neptune (as mentioned in an earlier post), went for nearly $1-million CND at auction. Several of the other items from the late Frank Streeter’s collection went for amounts twice as high as originally estimated.

A 1632 first edition of Champlain’s collected writings on New France, which includes an even more famous map of the colony, had a pre-sale estimate of nearly $140,000USD, but went for just under $300,000CND.

A book by Pacific Coast explorer Sir George Vancouver nearly tripled its predicted price of $30,000, selling for just over $81,000CND.

Read the full story here.

[tags]antique maps, antique atlases, map auctions, christie’s auctions[/tags]

David Allen, editor of Coordinates: The Online Journal of the Map and Geography Round Table of the American Library Association announced that a new version of Matthew Edney’s “Recent Trends in the History of Cartography: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography to the English-Language Literature” is now available.

The bibliography contains links to many online peer reviewed articles as well as numerous essays, project reports, technical notes, republished articles, and other materials of interest to the cartographic community.

Via: MapHist

[tags]cartography, cartographic history[/tags]

An 18th-century atlas that was key to helping Britain secure its Canadian possessions after the fall of New France and, that is expected to sell for $700,000 USD, will be among a number of items to go on the auction block next week in New York.

J.W.F. Des Barres’ four-volume edition of The Atlantic Neptune, the atlas that revolutionized map-making in the 1770s with unprecedented accuracy of its East Coast charts along with its beautiful illustrations of scenes in Nova Scotia and other sites along the Atlantic seaboard.

Des Barres later served as the British governor of Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island; his maps helped Britain defend the colonies against potential French and American invasions.

The late Frank Streeter specialized in collecting rare books about the European exploration and mapping of the New World. His library included more than $1-million worth of coveted first editions published by Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec, pioneering Pacific navigator George Vancouver, and Alexander Mackenzie, the first person to complete a coast-to-coast crossing of Canada. The Christie’s auction will include many of the items from Streeter’s collection.

A 1632 first edition of Champlain’s collected writings on New France, with an even more famous map of the colony, has a pre-sale estimate of nearly $140,000.

Via: Edmonton Journal

[tags]Antique Map Auctions, Antique Atlas, Rare Atlas, The Atlantic Neptune, Des Barres[/tags]

There have been over 1000 additions to the online David Rumsey Collection of digitized antique maps this month. The online collection now numbers 15,869 maps and related images. All titles may be found by launching the Insight Browser or Java Client and using the search interface. A complete list of recent addtions can be accessed by going to Rumsey’s recent additions page.

Via: MapHist

[tags]Online Map Collections, Antique Maps, David Rumsey[/tags]

An interesting article entitled, “Meet ‘new’ Virginia” at dailypress.com, out of Hampton Roads, Virginia, points to an antique map exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art beginning April 18, 2007 and running through to August 12, 2007. The exhibit, meant to coincide with the 1607 landing at Jamestown, Virginia, is called, “Envisioning Virginia 1587-1784: Early Maps of the New World“. It features 30 antique maps that demonstrate how some of the earliest maps of Virginia and the New World depict an area that has little resemblance to the geographical reality we know today.

The historically significant maps in the exhibition include Abraham Oretelius’ map America from 1587, Captain John Smith’s Virginia map from 1626, and several other English, Dutch, and Italian examples. A copy of the large and celebrated map of the “Western Parts of Virginia” made by Thomas Hutchins, first geographer of the United States, will also be shown.

[tags]Antique Maps, Antique Map Exhibits[/tags]