Firsts 2024

Salad Days

LA SALE, Antoine de

La Salade, nouvelleme[n]t imprimee.

Publication [Paris, veuve de Michel Le Noir, 1521].

Description

Quarto (254 by 180mm), (4 ff.), lxiii ff. lxxiii, numerous illustrations within text, three folding plates, several leaves (mainly the last nine) with loss to upper corner, skilfully repaired in facsimile, some stains and wormholes on the last leaves, contemporary full panelled calf, blind fillet borders, with gilt foliate device to corner and centre, spine in six compartments separated by raised bands.

Collation [sig. ?4 a-d6 e-f4 g6 h-i4 k6 l-n4].

References

Bechtel, L.54-L55; Brunet, III, 854; Tchйmerzine, IV, pp. 59-61.

£75,000

Antonio de La Sale (c1385-1461), tutor to the Duke of Anjou, “made this little booklet which I call “The Salad” because in the salad there are several good herbs” (verso of the first leaf ), for the edification of his royal pupil. As he indicates at the beginning of his text, his “salad” provides a mixture of writings that can be read independently of each other. These include a small treatise on the eight virtues useful to a prince, a choice of stories and stratagems taken from ancient authors like Valère-Maxime and Frontin, Le Paradisi, two partly autobiographical texts, a chapter on geography, a genealogical tree of the House of Aragon, ceremonies and ordinances of Philip IV of France, and other useful information for a fledgling prince.

The work also provides information on Iceland and Greenland, one of the earliest European texts to do so, which had previously been “unknown to our astrologers due to their long harsh winters”(trans.) As well as numerous illustrations within the text, there are folding plates representing: “Le Mont de la Sibille”; a map of the world; and the genealogical tree of the house of Aragon, printed in red and black. The world map is the first printed map to name the antipodes. It places a large sea at the South Pole “Mare Antipodes et Incognitum” instead of a sprawling continent, as was customary.

“La Salle wrote his ‘La Salade’ in about 1440 and this later woodcut [world map] is derived from a manuscript original no longer traced. It is a curious ensemble, based on medieval concepts combined with perhaps Pomponius Mela’s classical world and yet showing some later influences” (Shirley).

Rare: we are only aware of one example of the first edition appearing at auction in the last 40 years.

HOGENBERG, Frans

[The Royal Exchange, London Interior Court, from the South].

Publication [London Frans Hogenberg, c1569].

Description Engraved print.

Dimensions

383 by 530mm. (15 by 20.75 inches).

£12,500

The First Commercial Building in London, and the Earliest English Copper Engraved Topographical Print

The rare first state of Hogenberg’s print of the Royal Exchange. In the sixteenth century, the power dynamics in Europe shifted. The dominant financial forces in the European market were no longer simply those with vast domestic and overseas territories, likes Spain. The rise of the mercantile classes, and the corresponding ideology that the pursuit of wealth could be both patriotic and devout, increased the importance of commerce in the construction of English nationhood, as Hogenberg’s print shows.

Frans Hogenberg, who collaborated with Georg Braun to create the ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’, emigrated to London in 1568 with his brother Remegius after the Duke of Alva became regent of the Spanish holdings in the Low Countries, and stayed until 1587. Two years before he arrived work had begun on the Exchange, the first commercial building in England, inspired by Sir Thomas Gresham’s experience of the bourse in Antwerp. It was clearly significant enough to his contemporaries for Hogenberg to record the occasion: he also produced a print of the exterior. Gresham (1519-1579) was a banker and merchant, whose expertise in currency helped rebuild the pound under successive Tudor monarchs. The Exchange was designed both to provide a centre of commerce as England’s financial power grew, and also to act as a source of income for Gresham, who rented out the shops in the building. The print shows the Exchange without the column crowned by a grasshopper added in the final stages of building, which appears in the second state. Gresham’s crest was a grasshopper, probably a play on the first syllable of his name. The royal arms are suspended above the courtyard, with Gresham’s arms underneath: Elizabeth I would officially open the Exchange in 1571, granting it a royal title and the right to sell alcohol.

We have not been able to trace any other examples of this state of the print. The British Museum holds the second state.

LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huygen van.

John Huighen van Linschoten his Discours of Voyages unto ye Easte & West Indies. Devided into Foure Bookes.

Publication

London, John Wolfe, 1598.

Description

4 parts in one volume. Folio (290 by 190mm), Mostly black letter, double column. [6] leaves, blank, engraved general title-page by William Rogers (Johnson, p.2, Rogers no.3), dedication, ‘To the Reader’, pages numbered 1-197 ‘The First Booke’, [1] leaf sectional vignette title-page with engraved map of the Congo, pages numbered [197]- 259 (ie 295) ‘The Second Booke’, [1] leaf sectional vignette titlepage with engraved double- hemisphere map of the world, Shirley 182, pages numbered 307- 447 ‘The Thirde Booke’, [1] leaf sectional vignette title- page with engraved map of Spain, pages numbered [451]-462 ‘The Fourth Booke’; doublepage engraved folding map of the world ‘Typus Orbis Terrarum’ (Shirley 169), 8 large double-page folding maps, and 3 folding views of St. Helena and Ascension, 4 woodcut maps in text, woodcut initials, factotums and head-piece ornaments; EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED with 29 plates by the van Deutecum brothers from the Dutch edition, some minor reinforcement at some of the folds, otherwise a fine crisp example; full calf, five line gilt panelled boards, spine with raised bands, each compartment with similar gilt panels, gilt titles.

“The navigator’s vade mecum for the Eastern seas” - one of the most influential English travel books of the sixteenth century

The very rare English edition of Linschoten’s ‘Itinerario’, first published in Dutch in 1595-1596, and translated from the Dutch by William Phillip.

Linschoten’s was the first printed work to include precise sailing instructions for the East Indies. Its exposition of a route to the south of Sumatra through the Sunda Strait allowed Dutch and, later, English merchants to circumvent the Portuguese stranglehold on passage, and, therefore, trade, to the East through the Straits of Malacca. This enabled the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company to set sail for the Spice Islands and, ultimately, China and Japan, and was of such economic utility that, according to Church, and others, “it was given to each ship sailing from Holland to India” and soon became “the navigator’s vade mecum for the Eastern seas” (Penrose).

“This important work contains all the knowledge and learning related to the East and West Indies and navigations to those parts that was available at the end of the sixteenth century. It was held in such high esteem that for nearly a century a copy was given to each ship sailing to India as a guide to the sailing directions. The fact that most copies were in continual use is in no doubt the reason that fine copies, especially with all correct plates and maps, are so very rare” (Hill).

The work is made up of four parts. The first, provides the account of Linschoten’s travels in Asia and includes accounts of east coast of Africa, Arabia and as far east as Japan. The chapter is accompanied by fine folding maps of the world, Arabia and India, the southeast coast of Africa, a superb map of east Asia and the East Indies and finally one of southwest Africa.

The second book focuses on the west coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope to Arabia and India. It also details the New World accompanying which is a fine map of South America extending northwards to Florida. The third book is derived from the discoveries of the Portuguese Royal pilot Diego Affonso, and details the navigation from Portugal to India, and onwards to the East Indies. Similar detail is also provided for Spanish America and Brazil. Accompanying this is the superb ‘Spice Islands’ map illustrated with spices of the region. The final fourth book provides economic details provided by the territories of the King of Spain.

In fact, until its publication, no other book contained anything like the amount of useful information on the East and West Indies, and it soon became required reading for all navigators sailing to the East, with chapters on the coast of ‘Arabia Felix’, ie., the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula, the island of Ormus, and Islamic India.

“This is the first work outside of Portugal and Spain to provide detailed practical information on how to get to and engage in trade with America and India. The work was indispensable to sailors on the route to the Indies [and] served as a direct stimulus to the building of the vast English and Dutch overseas empires” (Streeter).

Dimensions 280 by 188mm. (11 by 7.5 inches).

Collation

A(4), B-I(6), K-Q(6), R(8), *s(2), S-U(6), X-Z(6), Aa-Ii(6), Kk-Pp(6), Qq(7).

References

Alden and Landis, 598:57; Borba de Moraes, I:417; Church, 321; ESTC, S111823; Hill, 182; Howgego, L131, G40; Luborsky and Ingram, 509; Parker, 159-161; Sabin, 41374; Schilder, 195-228; Shirley [World], nos. 167 and 216; Shirley [Atlases], G.Lin 2a; Streeter Sale, 1:31; Worms, 1705; Worms and Baynton-Williams.

£150,000

Jan Huyghen van Linschoten (1563-1611)

Linschoten was a native of Enkhuizen who travelled to Spain in 1576 to join his two elder brothers. The family moved to Lisbon during the troubles of 1581. Through family contacts the young Linschoten became attached to the retinue of Vincente de Fonseca as he was sent to Goa aa Archbishop. Arriving in September 1583 he spent tome travelling through Malabar and Coromandel. All the while he compiled a secret account of his findings. In 1586 Dirck Gerritsz (1544-1604) passed through Goa returning from Japan having also been to China. He was probably the first Dutchman to visit the former. He passed much of his knowledge to Linschoten.

The archbishop returned to Europe in 1587 to report to Philip II but Linschoten remained. Expecting his return, he later found out that he had died at sea. He resolved to return himself and through the auspices of Dutch traders such as the Fuggers and Welsers in India obtained the position of a factor on one of their returning vessels in 1589. He remained on the island of Terceira in the Azores for two years and made his way back to Holland in September 1592. He continued to gather further information from Dutch sailors even accompanied William Barentsz’s second voyage to the Kara Sea in 1594-95. In 1594 he received permission to publish his work. The ‘Itinerario’ was an instant success and combined his first-hand accounts with translations of Portuguese and Spanish documents.

The work provided accurate sailing information and detailed descriptions of how to trade in both Asia and South America and the nature of their commodities. Legend has it that examples were given to every Dutch ship sailing to Asia.

Translation

Word of the significance of the book reached the publisher John Wolfe ((fl.1579-1601) who records in the dedication:

“About a Twelvemonth agoe, a learned Gentleman brought unto mee the Voyages and Navigation of John Huyghen van Linschoten into the Indies written in the Dutche Tongue, which he wished might be translated into our Language, because hee thought it would be not onley delightfull, but also very commodious for our English Nation. Upon this commendation and opinion, I procured the Translation thereof accordingly, and so thought goo to publish the same in Print...’. That gentleman was identified in the address to the reader: ‘Which Booke being commended, by Richard Hackluyt, a man that laboureth greatly to advance our English Name and Nation”.

Wolfe was ideally placed to undertake the work, being “the first London bookseller to produce a sequence of map-illustrated works. He clearly kept a rolling-press and was possibly the first regular London book-printer to do so” (Worms & Baynton-Williams). The translation was undertaken by William Phillip. The maps and plates were engraved by Robert Beckit, Ronald Elstrack and William Rogers. Most are re-engravings of those in the Dutch edition. “Wolfe’s turbulent career, his clashes with his old master John Day and the Stationers’ Company, his imprisonments, secret presses, and faked imprints have sometimes obscured his other achievements. He had an extensive international trade and was ‘the father of news publishing’ in London” (Worms).

“Financial help came from a group of London merchants who provided ten pounds to Hakluyt to see the book in print alongside a further thirty shillings towards the production of maps to accompany it” (Parker).

Extra illustration

This is a slightly taller example than the Church copy. The English edition did not include copies of the thirty or so illustrations of native peoples found in the Dutch edition. However, ‘sets of the Dutch engravings were apparently imported by the publisher and bound into some exemplars’ (Luborsky & Ingram), as found in this example. Examples do vary in content and some are found with examples of the Dutch maps inserted. Indeed, the British Library possess three examples, none are complete. This example only includes the English engraved maps.

List of maps

Most of the maps and views of the English edition are re-engravings of the plates of the original Dutch edition of 1595-1596, with captions in Latin and English.

1. [Anonymous after] ORTELIUS, Abraham, ‘Typus Orbis Terrarum’. An English derivative of Ortelius’ more up to date plate of 1587 and the earlier more decorative cloud border. Shirley (1993) 167.

2. [Mozambique], ‘The description of the Islandes and Castle of Mozambique...’, engraved by William Rogers.

3. [Arabia, the Indian Ocean and India], ‘The description of the coast of Abex...’ A much-improved depiction of the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Qasimi (1999) p. 32 Dutch edition only; Ankary (2001) pp. 74-6, 148-9 referring only to the Dutch plate; Gole (1978) no. 8 listing only the Dutch plate; Schilder (2003) pp. 220-3; Tibbets (1978) no. 51: “The surprising fact about the representation of the [Arabian] peninsula is the close resemblance of the outline to that of a modern map when

compared with other engraved maps of the time. There is a vague suggestion of the Qatar peninsula, which is not seen again until the nineteenth century” (Tibbets).

4. [East Africa], ‘The description or Caerd of the Coastes of the Countreys following called Terra do Natal...’, engraved by Robert Beckit, including the western half of the Indian Ocean along the coast of South Africa, all of Madagascar.

5. [Southeast Asia], ‘The Trew Description of All the Coasts of China...’, extending from the island of Korea and Japan south of ‘Beach’ (Australia), Java, Timor, the Philippines, the Indochina peninsula, and most of the coast and much of the interior of China), Chang (2003) pl. 16, p. 147 Dutch only, p. 192 no. 134 English; Geldart (2017) p. 19; Hubbard (2012) p. 47, fig. 36; Schilder (1976) no. 18 Dutch; Schilder (2003) pp. 222-6; Suarez (1999) pp. 178-9; Suarez (2004) p. 79; Walter (1994) no. 12 Dutch.

6. [St. Helena]

a. ‘The Island of St. Helena full of Sweet and pleasaunt ayre fructfull ground and fresh water...’, b. ‘The true description, and situation of the Island St. Helena, on the East, North, and West Sydes’, both engraved by Raygnald Elstrak.

7. [Ascention Island], ‘The True Description of the Island of Ascention...’, engraved by William Rogers.

8. [Southwest Africa], ‘The description of the Coast of Guinea...’. Norwich (1983) no. 239a Dutch; Schilder (2003) pp. 215-19; Tooley (1969) p. 67 Dutch.

9. [South America], ‘The description of the whole coast lying in the South Seas of Americae called Peru...’, displays the whole of South America, Caribbean and Florida. Schilder (2003) pp. 226-8.

10. [The Spice Islands Map], ‘Insulae Molucca celeberrimae...’, extends from southeast Asia to the Solomon Islands and northwards to include the Philippines. The famous Spice Island map, so called for its depiction of the spices nutmeg, clove, and sandalwood along the bottom after the original by Petrus Plancius who obtained his information covertly from the Portuguese maps of Bartolomeu Lasso. Schilder (2003) pp. 117-22; Suarez (1999) pp. 177-9.

Provenance

Private American collection.

HAKLUYT, Richard, and WRIGHT, Edward

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, Made by Sea or Over-land, to the remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth, at any time within the compasse of these 1600. Yeres.

Publication

London, George Bishop, Ralph Newberies and Robert Barker, 1599–1600.

Description

3 works bound in 2 volumes, folio (286 by 181mm), complete with the rare WrightMolyneux world map on two sheets joined, map carefully trimmed to the neatline, with repaired closed tear and light restoration around folds, provenance sig. I6 with chip to fore edge just grazing shoulder note, a few leaves in same volume with very minor peripheral damp staining; vol. III sig. I5 with text misaligned with consequent slight shaving of shoulder note, contents generally very clean and fresh; mid-eighteenth century calf, recent red morocco labels to style, neat restoration at extremities, covers panelled in blind, light red speckled edges.

Dimensions

Map dimensions: 630 by 430mm. (24.75 by 17 inches).

References

Alden and Landis, (3) I:360-361; Borba de Moraes, 391-392; Church, 322; ESTC, S106753; Grolier, 14; Hill, 743; Penrose, 318; Pforzheimer, 443; PMM, 105; Quinn, 490; Sabin, 29595, 29597, 29698; STC, 12626; cf. Shirley [World], 221.

18425

£800,000

“the

great prose epic of the Elizabethan period” - the first English map on Mercator’s projection; the first map to name Lake Ontario; and one of the first maps to use the name “Virginia”

The Wright-Molyneux Map is the first English map on Mercator’s projection, it is the first map to name Lake Ontario, and one of the first maps to use the name “Virginia”. Richard Hakluyt’s ‘Principall Navigations’ is first collection of English voyages, published at the height of Elizabethan maritime prestige and “the great prose epic of the Elizabethan period”.

The Wright-Molyneux Map

Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) revolutionized cartography with his development of an isogonic cylindrical projection that mapped a sphere on to a flat plane. Mercator expected that his projection would be a valuable tool for navigators but he neglected to provide practical guidelines on how use it. Edward Wright (1558?-1615), a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, modified Mercator’s system and published his results, ‘The Correction of Certain Errors in Navigation’, in 1599 and again in an improved edition entitled ‘Certaine errors in navigation, detected and corrected’ (London, 1610). Wright’s book contained new mathematical tables and instructions on plotting straightline courses on maps based on the Mercator projection. The system developed by Wright contributed to the supremacy of the British Navy and is still in use today.

Wright published ‘A Chart of the World on Mercator’s Projection’ in 1599 based on his projection of a globe engraved by the English globe maker Emeric Molyneux in 1592. It was the first map to use Wright’s improvements on Mercator’s projection. It quickly became famous, even catching Shakespeare’s attention: in “Twelfth Night”, first performed in 1602, Maria says of Malvolio: “He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies” (Act III, Scene II).

Unlike many maps and charts of the era that represented the often fantastic speculations of their makers, Wright’s ‘Chart of the World’ offers a minimum of detail and even leaves areas blank wherever geographic information was lacking. These undefined areas are especially evident along Wright’s coastlines. For example, the coast of California above Cape Mendocino is blank.

Wright’s world map depicts a wider Pacific Ocean than other maps of its time. On the American continent, Wright labels upper California ‘Nova Albion’; other maps designated this area ‘Anian’ but Wright adopted the name given the region by Sir Francis Drake. ‘Quivira’ still appears on the West coast. Further to the east, the map also shows a ‘Lake of Tadouac’ reminiscent of the Sea of Verrazano. This lake is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by a river that appears to run south of the St. Lawrence River. It is also connected to a large body of water to the north. Lake Tadouac is apparently an early reference to either the Hudson Bay or to the Great Lakes, neither of which were “discovered” by Europeans until eleven or twelve years after Wright’s map was published. Wright’s map is also one of the earliest maps to use the name “Virginia”.

The present example is in the second state, also from 1599, with the cartouche with engraved text describing Drake’s discoveries in the Americas added to the lower left of the map.

Top left are the arms of Elizabeth I; top right a strapwork cartouche with a text about Francis Gaulle’s discoveries in the Pacific; and bottom centre another cartouche with a general description of the chart.

The Principall Navigations

Comprising 243 narratives of voyages and travels in the New World in some 1,700,000 words, ‘The Principall Navigations’ is the greatest assemblage of travel accounts and navigations to all parts of the world collected up to its time, and a vital source for early New World exploration. “It is difficult to over rate the importance and value of this extraordinary collection of voyages” (Sabin).

This second edition of Hakluyt’s voyages is, in fact, an entirely different book from the initial 1589 compilation and was greatly expanded from the single-volume original. Boies Penrose considered that “the first edition of the Principal Navigations transcended anything that had gone before, though it, in turn, was surpassed by the second edition”. Indeed, Hakluyt devoted his life to the work and “throughout the 1590s, therefore, this indefatigable editor set himself to the formidable task of expanding the collection and bringing it up to date... this was indeed Hakluyt’s monumental masterpiece, and the great prose epic of the Elizabethan period... Much that was new and important was included: the travels of Newbery and Fitch, Lancaster’s first voyage, the new achievements in the Spanish Main, and particularly Raleigh’s tropical adventures...The book must always remain a great work of history, and a great sourcebook of geography, while the accounts themselves constitute a body of narrative literature which is of the highest value in understanding the spirit and the tendencies of the Tudor age” (Penrose). Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations was one of the major prestige publications of the Tudor state, seeking to do for English exploration what Holinshed’s Chronicles had done for the nation’s history, a key work in promoting overseas ventures. Hakluyt himself never travelled further afield than France, but he met or corresponded with many of the great explorers, navigators, and cartographers including Drake, Raleigh, Gilbert, Frobisher, Ortelius, and Mercator. In addition to long and significant descriptions of the Americas in volume 3, the work also contains accounts of Russia, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, Turkey, Middle East, Persia, India, south-east Asia, and Africa. Hakluyt owed a good deal to Sir Francis Walsingham’s support and probably gathered intelligence for him in Paris; the first edition was both dedicated to and licensed for publication by him. After Walsingham’s death in 1590, the patronage of Sir Robert Cecil was increasingly important to Hakluyt.

Volume I of the second edition of the Principal Navigations was dedicated to the lord admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, but the other two were dedicated to Cecil.

Here the first volume contains the original printing of the rare ‘Voyage to Cadiz’, which was suppressed by order of Queen Elizabeth after Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, incurred her wrath by returning to England from Ireland without leave in 1599 to marry Sir Philip Sidney’s widow, the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. This copy is the second issue of the second edition with volume I dated 1599. The first issue is dated 1598, and its title page makes reference to the Earl of Essex’s voyage to Cadiz, which was ordered to be suppressed because Elizabeth was angered by Essex’s status as a popular hero of the war against Spain. However, the printed leaves detailing the voyage to Cadiz, pp. 607-619, which ought also to have been suppressed, are here present in their original uncancelled state.

The third volume is devoted almost entirely to the Americas, the South Seas, and various circumnavigations of the world. It includes the accounts of Niza, Coronado, Ruiz, and Espejo relating to New Mexico; Ulloa, Drake, and others concerning California; and Raleigh’s account of Guiana. “Hakluyt was a vigorous propagandist and empire-builder; his purpose was to further British expansion overseas. He saw Britain’s greatest opportunity in the colonization of America, which he advocated chiefly for economic reasons, but also to spread Protestantism, and to oust Spain” (Hill).

Edward Wright’s world map was, according to Quinn’s 1974 census for ‘The Hakluyt Handbook’, only to be found in 19, of the 240, predominantly institutional, examples of the book surveyed. Quinn notes that this survival rate is, even allowing for the high mortality levels traditionally attached to decorative world maps in books, “sufficiently low to raise the possibility that not all copies were equipped with the map, either because it was made available after many sets had been sold, which would mean that its date might be later than 1599, or because it was an optional extra supplied at additional cost”. Quinn’s survey included all major booksellers’ catalogues and public auctions in the English speaking world.

Subsequent to this 1974 census, the only other copy we know to have appeared in commerce with the map in the past half-century is the Grenville–Crawford–Rosebery copy, bound in early nineteenth-century red morocco, which lacked the map until a supplied copy was inserted sometime between its sale at auction by Sotheby’s in 1933 and its reappearance in the Franklin Brooke-Hitching sale, Sotheby’s, 30 Sept. 2014, lot 579. Hakluyt’s use of this map in his publication was to show “so much of the world as hath beene hetherto discovered, and is comme to our knowledge”.

The historical importance of the work cannot be overstated. It is truly “an invaluable treasure of nautical information which has affixed to Hakluyt’s name a brilliancy of reputation which time can never efface or obscure” (Church). ‘The Principall Navigations’ “redounds as much to the glory of the English nation as any book that ever was published” (Bancroft).

Rarity

Known examples of the Wright-Molyneux map British Library, London (3 copies); Bodleian Library, Oxford; Chatsworth House, Derbyshire; Eton College Library, Windsor; Huntington, San Marino (2 copies); Newberry Library, Chicago; Lilly Library Bloomington; Clements Library, Ann Arbor; Princeton (2 copies); New York Public Library, New York; Philadelphia Public Library, Philadelphia; Naval War College, Newport; JCB Library, Providence; University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Mitchell Library, Sydney.

Provenance

Sir John Henry Seale, 1st Baronet (1780–1844) of Mount Boone in the parish of Townstal near Dartmouth in Devon, was a Whig Member of Parliament for Dartmouth in 1838. He was created a baronet on 31 July 1838. He owned substantial lands in Devon, mainly at Townstal and Mount Boone Together with the Earl of Morley of Saltram House near Plymouth, he built several bridges in Dartmouth, most notably the Dart crossing.

SCOLARI, Stefano LONDRA

Per illustri ac celeberrimo et eloquentissimo Oratori Domino Marino ab Ocha Domino meo.

Publication

[Venice, Stefano Scolari, 1629].

Description

Copper engraving, printed on four sheets, joined, a few small tears, and some areas of loss skillfully reinstated in facsimile.

Dimensions image: 390 by 2069mm (15.25 by 81.5 inches). Sheet: 427 by 2150mm (16.75 by 84.75 inches).

References

BM. Scouloudi, pp.29-30.

£25,000

Stefano Scolari’s rare and stunning panorama of London, showing the city before the Great Fire, extending from Whitehall to St Katherineby-the-Tower.

Scolari’s print is based on an example by Nicolas Visscher printed in 1616, which was often used as a starting point for pre-Fire panoramas. Ralph Hyde identifies Scolari’s print as a later variant of Franco Vallegio’s interpretation of Visscher’s panorama, with the plate considerably reworked. It is rare to see a surviving panorama from this period: their size, and the fact that they were normally issued without wrappers, made them particularly vulnerable.

Although Scolari reworked the skyline, he retained the decoration in the sky. The title is held on a banderole by two angels, with two figures of Fame blowing trumpets bearing the coats of arms of the royal family and the City of London. The heads of executed criminals are visible on the gate to London Bridge. St Paul’s Cathedral appears in the pre-Fire state, without the Wren dome.

Stefano Scolari (fl.1643-1695) was an engraver and publisher working in Venice during the second half of the sixteenth century. He was well known for reworking the plates of other mapmakers.

WOUTNEEL, Hans; Crispin de PASSE, the elder and younger; and VISSCHER, Claez Jansz, after Jacob and Joris HOEFNAGEL, Assuerus van LONDERSEEL, Nicolaes de BRUYN, and Adrian COLLAERT

[Untitled album of Natural History engravings].

Publication Amsterdam, [1594-1635].

Description

Oblong quarto (260 by 170mm), 176 engraved plates, numbered in an early hand 1-46, 48-54, 57-69, 80-189, including 8 title-pages, all with fine contemporary hand-colour in full, occasionally heightened in silver, two plates torn with slight loss to image and with early repairs, six plates with slight worming to margins, and three plates trimmed to neatline and laid down on old paper, front free endpaper with later ownership inscription; mid-seventeenth century English red morocco, elaborately gilt, silver clasps and catches.

£45,000

An album of engravings from the most famous natural history artists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, collected and bound for an English patron

A magnificent album of natural history engravings, collected and bound for an English patron, containing two complete suites of plates: Hoefnagel’s ‘Diversæ insectarum volatilium’; and Woutneel’s ‘Cognoscite lilia agri quomodo crescent’, often bound as the fifth part, ‘Altera Pars’, to the Crispin de Passes’ ‘Hortus Floridus’ - the “most ambitions, if not the first, early effort to employ Continental resources to produce a set of [botanical] engravings designed for the English market” (Gerard); and nine near complete, or partial suites, including an early issue of tulip plates from the ‘Hortus Floridus’.

All plates have been numbered consecutively in manuscript at the time of binding to a rudimentary scientific rubric: insects first, then aquatic animals, quadrupeds, birds, and botanicals last, but not least. As a result, some plates are bound with like subject rather than with their original publications.

The album represents the work of some of the most famous natural history artists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The majority are published by Claes Jansz Visscher (1587-1652), the most important publisher of prints and maps in Amsterdam of his day. Recorded as an engraver in Amsterdam as early as 1608, he built a distinctive inventory of prints after the designs of Flemish artists, which proved extremely popular and formed the basis of Visscher’s early success as a publisher.

INSECTS

HOEFNAGEL, Jacob. Diversæ insectarum volatilium: icones ad vivum accuratissmè depictæ per celeberrimum pictorem D.I. Hoefnagel typisq. Mandatae a Nicolao Ioannis Visscher anno 1630

Engraved title-page, complete with 15 numbered plates of insects, misbound including some upside-down, bound with plates 11 and 12 from ‘Volatilium varii generis effigies’ after Nicolaes de Bruyn, all with contemporary hand-colour heightened in silver, consecutively numbered in an early hand 1-18.

North German insects, with the exception of the tarantula and scorpion. Engraved by Visscher after those by Jacob Hoefnagel, 15731632, court painter for Emperor Rudolph from 1607, son of Joris Hoefnagel, whose drawings of animals, flowers and insects he engraved and published as the ‘Archetypa Studiaque Patris Georgii Hoefnagelii’ (1592). He also engraved plates for Braun and Hogenburg’s ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’ (1512 - 1617).

Ebert 798; Hagen I, 371f; Hollstein IX, 46, 1-16; Nissen 1955; Horn-Schenkl. 10473.

AQUATIC ANIMALS

BRUYN, Nicolaes de. Libelius [sic] varia genera piscium compectens, pictoribus, sculptoribus etc mire utilis et necessaries Nicolaes de Bruyn inventor Claes Ianss. Visscher excudit.

[interspersed with]:

COLLAERT, Adrian. Piscium vivae icones inventae ab Adrian Collardo et excusae a Nicolao Ioannis Visscher anno 1634

Engraved allegorical title-page for ‘Libillus’, 11 (of 12, without the sea-horse) plates of aquatic animals and sea-monsters; 19 (of 20) engraved plates of aquatic animals, numbered in an early hand 19-44, followed by the allegorical title-page for ‘Piscium’, numbered 45, all with contemporary hand-colour, all annotated in an early hand with common names in English.

An early state of the title-page for de Bruyn’s ‘Libellus’ before correction. Nicolaes de Bruyn (1571-1656) is best known for his large engraved landscapes “after designs by artists such as Gillis van Coninxloo and David Vinckboons from around 1600… his pupil and brother-inlaw [was] Jan van Londerseel” (Hollstein online)

A near complete suite of plates from a later edition of Collaert’s famous work on fish, first published in about 1598, in which the original engravings included elaborate landscape backgrounds. For his version, Claes Visscher has incorporated his harpoon monogram into the dramatic titlepage. Collaert (1560-1618) married engraver and publisher Philippe Galle.

WEYER, Gabriel. Monstra marina dat is verscheydon zee-monsters ge inventeert door Gabriel Weyer gedrucht by Claes Ianss. Visscher a.o 1634

Engraved allegorical title-page, 7 (of 12) plates of mermaids and mermen, all with contemporary hand-colour, numbered in an early hand 46, 48-54.

Berliner ‘Ornamentstichkatalog’ 4292 I; Nagler XXIV, S. 220, I

QUADRUPEDS

BOLSWERT, Boetius Adams, after Adrien BLOEMAERT. Natus Dei solius ad servitium, cinctis homo, per hund, creates imperat. Volentibus promisq.e; ut huic puessulo blande Leo Jouisq.e ales submittitur.

ABloemaert invent: BA. Bolsuerd: sculp C Visscher excudebat 1632 G. Ryckius

[interspersed with]:

BRUYN, Nicolaes de. [Animalium quadrupedum varii generis effigies… Allerley viervuessiger thier eigentliche abbildung, den goltschmieden dienlich], 1594.

8 (of 14, without plates 1, 5 and 11, plates 12, 13, 14 bound below with ‘Volatilium’) engraved plates of pastoral scenes from ‘Natus…’; 11 (of 12, bound without the title-page) engraved plates of animals from ‘Animalium’, all with contemporary hand-colour, numbered in an early hand 57-69, and 80-85, allegorical title-page for ‘Natus’ numbered 86, annotated with the common names in English.

The artistic Bolswert and Bloemaert families of Utrecht seem to have been very close, frequently working together. Bloemaert met a grisly death at the hands of one of his students in 1666.

‘Animalium…’ cf Hollstein 303-310; ‘Natus…’ cf Hollstein 406-419

BIRDS

BRUYN, Nicolaes de. Volatilium varii generis effigies, in tyronum, praecipue vero aurisabrorum gratiam aeri incisa Claes Ianss. Visscher exu. NB.

[interspersed with]:

COLLAERT, Adrian. Avium vivae icones, Adriano Collardo inventore et excusum apud C Visscher anno 1625.

9 (of 13, without plate 13, and plates 11 and 12 bound with ‘Diversæ insectarum volatilium’ above) engraved plates of birds from ‘Volatilium’; 12 (of 18, without plates 4, 9, 14, 15, 18, plate 1 [title-page] bound separately below) engraved plates of birds from ‘Avium…’; plates 12, 13 and 14 from ‘Natus…’ (see above), all with contemporary hand-colour, numbered in an early hand 87-110, allegorical title-page for ‘Volatilium…’ numbered “1” in the plate, in manuscript “iii” [ie 111], and with “Thretti” in the lower margin.

BOTANICAL

PASSE, Crispin van de, the elder and younger. [Hortus Floridus] [Utrecht, 1614]

12 engraved plates of tulips (numbered 32, 43-53), all with early hand-colour, numbered in an early hand 112-123, one ascribed to Willem de Pass in the plate.

An early issue, with no text on verso, and captions only in Latin, of a selection of tulip plates from “the most popular florilegium ever published” (‘An Oak Spring Flora’). The work was first issued in a number of states between 1614 and 1617, and is often hailed as “the most important of early

examples of botanical illustration” (Gerard). It was issued in four sections, on for each season, with text in Latin and subsequently a selection of vernacular languages.

‘An Oak Spring Flora’ 12

WOUTNEEL, Hans; and possibly Crispin van de, PASSE the elder. Cognoscite lilia agri quomodo crescent, non laborant, neque nent: attamen dico vobis ne salomonem quidem in universa Gloria sua sic amic tum fuisse.ut unum ex his. Matthe: 6 Cap. Formulis Crispiam Passaei et Joannis Waldnelij, [1603-1608]

Allegorical title-page, 61 engraved plates, captions in Latin, French, English and Dutch, all with early hand-colour, numbered in manuscript 124-185, annotated throughout in two early hands with the months in which they flower, and their medicinal properties in the “first”, “second” and “third degree”, misbound.

The “most ambitions, if not the first, early effort to employ Continental resources to produce a set of [botanical] engravings designed for the English market” (Gerard). Complete, a suite of 61 plates depicting 120 plants, published as a separate work in its own right, but often issued as the fifth part of the de Passe’s ‘Hortus Floridus’, when it appears with an additional letterpress title-page as the ‘Altera Pars’. An early issue, with no text on verso.

“Traditionally, the ‘Alera Pars’ has been considered as an aesthetically inferior appendage to the ‘Hortus Floridus’ and has received little attention from historians of prints or botanical illustration. However, the presence on the title-page of the imprint of Hands Woutneel (“Joannis Waldelij”), an Antwerp native who was a bookseller and publisher in London from 1576 until his death sometime between 1603 and 1608, implies that the ‘Altera pars’ had a significant English component. As such, it stands as an early example of Anglo-Continental print publishing collaboration.

Prior to publication of the ‘Altera Pars’, the demand in England for botanical illustrations had been met primarily by relatively crude, highly schematic, collections of woodcuts, such as those in Jacques LeMoyne de Morgue’s ‘La Clef des Champs’ (1586) and John Norton’s publication of Gerard’s ‘Herball’ (1597). The ‘Altera Pars’, with its more naturalistic depictions of 120 plants, set a new standard and served as the primary source of botanical images for English engravers and publishers from the late years of the reign of James I through the Restoration’ (Gerard).

Hans Woutneel first appears in London on being admitted to the Stationers Company in 1579-80. Cartographer Abraham Ortelius mentions him frequently in his correspondence with his nephew Jacob Cole (Gerard), and Woutneel appears to have worked as Christopher Plantin’s London agent.

de Belder 272; Gerard, ‘Woutneel, de Passe and the AngloNetherlandish Print Trade’, 1996; Hunt 199; Nissen, BBI 1494

Avium vivae icons, Adriano Collardo inventore et excusum apud C Visscher anno 1625

Engraved allegorical title-page numbered 186 (see above for plates). [Untitled composite natural history]. Claes Janss Visscher excudibat A.o 1625

A suite of 12 numbered engraved plates of composite natural history subjects, all with early hand-colour, numbered in manuscript 187-198, 11 with the joint imprint of Assuerus van Londerseel and Claes Visscher.

In the style of Hoefnagel’s ‘Archetypa Studiaque ‘, 1592, this is a very scarce suite of plates, with only one uncoloured set known, in the British Library.

Provenance

1. Annotated throughout in an early English hand.

2. Later ownership inscription to front free endpaper, ‘Mr Francis Mackenzie Jeweller, Parliament Close, His Book, 1809’. Francis Mackenzie was a goldsmith and jeweler, working in Edinburgh at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

“It is called the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’, and was written in very faulty Italian for the use and instruction of the officers of the Tuscan fleet. In it most of the subjects enlarged upon in the Arcano, are treated concisely, including great circle sailing and all kinds of navigation ; the administrative management of a fleet, and its manoeuvres in a naval battle, etc.” (Leader)

DUDLEY, Robert; and others

Direttorio Marittimo di Don Roberto Dudleo Duca di Northumbria fatto p[er] ordine del Ser[issimo]Gr: Duca di Toscana suo Sig[no]re e diviso in due Tomi et ogni Tomo in due libri co[n] suoi Capitoli.

Publication [Firenze, c1637-1647].

Description Folio (290 by 196mm).

Original working autograph and holograph manuscript, in Italian, illustrated throughout with diagrams, and drawings of instruments, on seventeenth-century Italian paper, with various watermarks including a Sun (similar to Heawood 3893) and a Medici Coat-of-Arms (similar to Heawood 786), extensively revised at the time, some pages edited with pasteovers, others excised; early drab Italian stiff paper wrappers, stabbed and sewn as issued.

The only known manuscript example of any part of Robert Dudley’s magnum opus, ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ held in private hands.

An astonishing survival: a working manuscript, seemingly specifically assembled for the eyes and instruction of the officers of the Tuscan Navy, the Knights of St. Stefano, rather than for a public audience. This suggestion is borne out by the wording of the first title for the work that Dudley has crossed out (page 2): ‘Compendio del Direttorio Marittimo: Il pr[im]o Tomo e intilato, Supplemento della Navigare. Nel pr[im]o libro si discorre dell ‘arte, piu Curiosa di Navigare...’.

This was also the theory of Sir John Temple Leader, previous owner, and Dudley scholar: “It seems probable that the Arcano del Mare was only a resume of several previous works by Dudley. One of them is the MS. volume, quarto size, of which I possess the original, mostly in Dudley’s own hand. It is called the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’, and was written in very faulty Italian for the use and instruction of the officers of the Tuscan fleet. In it most of the subjects enlarged upon in the Arcano, are treated concisely, including great circle sailing and all kinds of navigation ; the administrative management of a fleet, and its manoeuvres in a naval battle, etc. The book is in ancient covers of thick paper, and preceded by a dedication to the Grand-Duke, and by a sketch of Dudley’s own naval life, written in his own hand with all his corrections and underlinings” (Leader, page 19).

Leader acquired the ‘Direttorio’ from Florentine librarian, collector, and bookseller, Pietro Bigazzi, from who he also acquired Gian Carlo de’ Medici’s (1611-1663), first edition of ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’, and a second edition, too. Leader writes about all three works, and the story of their acquisition, in his ‘Life of Sir Robert Dudley’ (1895).

The texts of the ‘Direttorio’ have clearly been written by Dudley, over time, but from at least as early as 1643-1644, and are further annotated by him up until 1647 (he died in 1649), and then further annotated by others, up until the publication of the second edition of 1661. They include: Dudley’s autobiography, in which he sets out his credentials as an expert in all things maritime - exploration, navigation, naval warfare, and architecture; several drafts and a completed version of a theological preface, or ‘Proemio’, which was eventually published in the second edition of the ‘Dell’arcarno del mar’ (1661); 28 chapters of material related to the text of the first edition of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ (1646-1647); theoretical navigational material not published in either edition of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’.

Collation

282 pages, foliated in pencil; pages [i-iv] biobibliography by Domenico Maria Manni; 1: title-page; 2: additional draft title-page, and dedication; p3-14: prospectus of contents (cancelled), followed by autobiographical ‘Proemio’; p15-139: ‘Direttorio Marittimo’, revised texts of 28 chapters of ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, incorporating theological ‘Proemio’, pp39-40; p140-146 addenda.

Condition

A few leaves missing between folios 86 and 87 (chapter xix and the beginning of xx), some lower margins trimmed, occasionally crossing the text.

Literature

R. Dudley, Dell’Arcano del mare, 6 books in 3 volumes, Florence, 1646-1647; Dell’arcano del mare, second edition, Florence, 1661; Arthur Gould Lee, The Son of Leicester, the Story of Sir Robert Dudley, London, 1964; J. T. Leader, Life of Sir Robert Dudley, Florence, Barbera, 1895; J. F. Schutte, S. J., ‘Japanese Cartography at the court of Florence; Robert Dudley’s maps of Japan, 1606-1636’, in Imago Mundi (23), 1969, pages 29-58; Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Notizie degli aggrandimenti delle scienze fisiche accaduti in Toscana nel corso di anni LX. del secolo XVII, 3 volumes. Florence, 1780; Manoscritti e alcuni libri a stampa singolari esposti e annotati da Pietro Bigazzi. Firenze, Tipografia Barbera, 1869.

£500,000

Contents

Pages [i-iv]: later bio-bibliography

Written by Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788) director of the Bibilioteca Strozzi, polymath, editor and publisher, also a member of Academia dell Crusca. He owned the ‘Direttorio’, according to Giovanni Targioni -Tozzetti (1712-1783), see ‘Notizie degli aggrandimenti delle scienze fisciche: accaduti in Toscana nel corso dianni LX del scolo XVII Florence’, 1780, volume I., page 80. These notes include mention of the manuscript design by Dudley of the Mole at Livorno in the time of Cosimo II (1590-1620) which was then in the Magliabechiana library. Manni also notes two imperial folio volumes, in the Palatina di Pitti library, of “Marine Treatises”, i.e. Dudley’s manuscript Treatise on marine architecture, began before 1610, in English and continued in Italian, by Dudley, until about 1635 (see Maria Enrica Vadala, ‘Il Trattato dell’architettura maritima di Roberto Dudley, storia e dispersione di un manoscritto’, Studi secenteschi, vol. 61 (2020), pages 193-237).

Manni writes: “Leaving aside many superfine circumstances which have given the Author the opportunity of attending to the theory and practice of the art of navigation, it will suffice to say that as a young man he had a natural sympathy for the sea, so that although he had a very pleasant charge on land in 1588 under his father, then Generalissimo, he nevertheless wanted to exercise the maritime militia, on which the greatness and reputation of the Kingdom of England then depended. Desirous still of discovering new countries (which pert made to manufacture and arm vessels of war), Author confided much in the great knowledge and experience of the famous seafarer and learned mathematician Abram Kendal of England, his master. Hence it followed that in 1594 he began his voyage to West India to discover and open the passage of the Guyana or Walliana Empire in America, and at that time he was much nominated as a great and rich nation; as he did with good success being General by sea and land with his vessels and people etc.”

Pages 1-2: Title-pages and Dedication

Dudley opens his ‘Dorettorio’ with a heart-felt dedication, officially to Grand Duke Ferdinand II, as was proper, and as he did ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. However, in this instance, he goes to great pains to go above and beyond that dedication to extend his tribute to the “Generalissimo del Mare”, i.e. Gian Carlo de’ Medici (1611-1663), Cardinal from 1644, “High Admiral of the Tuscan Navy”, “General of the Mediterranean Sea”, and “General of the Spanish Seas”. Gian Carlo was the second son of Cosimo II de’Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Maria Maddelena of Austria, and the recipient of a superb example of ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, with which the current manuscript was previously housed.

Humbly, Dudley hopes that “in [the ‘Direttorio] one can find something not useless for the common good of Navigation for your Highness and for Prince Giovanni Carlo Medici”. And thanks the Medici family for their support during the “past 37 years that he has been in voluntary exile … and under their protection”, dating the dedication to 1643-44.

Dudley then notes that he took the trouble to finish the ‘Direttorio’ in the best way that his experience in 50 years of maritime affairs (i.e. since 1594) has been able to produce and plan, but if he has erred in anything he hopes he will be excused.

Pages 3-14: ‘Supplem[en]to della Navigaz[io]ne perfetta Tomo primo libro I :proemio’.

Dudley writes of his many maritime achievements in exploration, warfare, and naval architecture, clearly intending to give authority to the following texts: " Setting aside many superfluous circumstances which have occasioned the author to turn his attention to the theory and practice of the art of navigation, suffice it to say that he is Nephew of three Grand Admirals of England (or Generalissimi of the Sea, which is one of the highest offices held under that of the Crown) and that he had from his youth a natural sympathy for the sea, and this in spite of his having in 1588 held the very honorable post of Colonel in the land forces, which he exercised under the command of his father, the General in Chief and Grand Master of England…" As Tyacke reports: this ‘proemio’ or autobiographical preface is not printed in the first edition of the ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’; nor is it the “theological proemio” which is printed in the second edition of 1661; but rather an account of Dudley’s career before he arrived in Florence. It is clearly designed to establish his credentials and to add great authority to the ‘Direttorio’. The text describes how Dudley had learnt the art of navigation and maritime discipline at about the age of 17, had experience of battle under his father the Earl of Leicester, and of navigation, and of designing warships and of participating in sea battles. There is a version of the text he wrote for Richard Hakluyt’s ‘Voyages…’ (1600) (volume III page 574) about his voyage to Trinidad and to the Orinoco, and Guiana in 1594 (see George F. Warner, ‘The voyage of Sir Robert Dudley …to the West Indies’, (15941595), Hakluyt Society, 1899).

In this autobiographical preface Dudley writes: “Si contento, non di meno, che consumasse il capricio e la spesa dall India Occidentale, p[er] scoprire et aprire il passo dell Imperio di Guiana o Walliana in America molto nominato in quel tempo pazione grande e vicca si come fece essendo Generale per mare... si fece padrone dell Isola della Trinita scopri la Guiana” – “He was happy, nevertheless… to discover the West Indies and open the way to the Empire of Guiana or Walliana in America, much known at that time as a great and wealthy country, and to be the General for the sea voyage … he made himself master of Trinita Island [Trinidad]; He discovered Guiana”. Dudley always claimed

that he got to the river Orinoco in Guiana, in 1594 before Sir Walter Ralegh.

Dudley then writes about the famous learned mariner and mathematician Abraham Kendal who was his ship’s master on his voyage to Trinidad, and then records how he had sent Captain Wood on a voyage to China (which in the event was unsuccessful). He records his own participation in the raid on Cadiz to destroy the Spanish fleet being assembled in 1596; he says in this and other voyages he practised navigation and the maritime and military disciplines, using great circle sailing and longitude: ‘di gra circoli e della longitude’, adding the words “come Arcano” – “as in the Arcano”, presumably a bit later.

He says that mariners have not well understood, nor practiced, navigation, according to great circles, and the other “spiral and horizontal methods”, with practical longitude.

It is his intention to explain how to do this, and a later insertion, by Dudley, in the margin, says that the first book teaches the method of using the hydrographical and general charts of the Author.

Page 14 ‘Proemio’

This is a theological preface to the ‘Direttorio’, and Dudley assures the censors that these potentially troublesome mathematical matters were in fact created by God himself along with natural and supernatural elements. Dudley formulates his argument for scientific knowledge, of which there are three types: the natural, supernatural, and the efficacy of the scientific (i.e. geometry and mathematics, see page 39) “le cose mathematiche sono certe, sicure et infallibili p[er] dimonstrazione e pero sono pui excellenti delle cose naturali...ma sono inferiori, delle cose supernaturali et immutabili”. An earlier version, on page 15, has crossed out “intelletto humana non arriua” – “Mathematical things are as certain and infallible by demonstration and therefore they are superior to the natural senses …but they are inferior to the supernatural things to which the human intellect cannot reach”.

There are no fewer than four early versions of the theological ‘Proemo’ in the ‘Direttorio’, two of which are incomplete revisions of difficult passages. However, the “theological proemio” which appears on pages 39-40 of the ‘Direttorio’ is published in the second edition of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ (1661), but not, apparently, in the first edition. Either it, or something similar must have been available to Lucini or Bagononi, the publishers of the second edition of 1661. ; p3-14: prospectus of contents (cancelled), followed by autobiographical ‘Proemio’; p15-139: ‘Direttorio Marittimo’, revised texts of 28 chapters of ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, incorporating theological ‘Proemio’, pp39-40; p140146 addenda.

Pages 14-139 text from ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’ (1646-1647) This section of the ‘Direttorio’ is composed of early versions of important passages in Books One, Two and Five of ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’: a compendious study of naval

theory and practice, treating of longitude and latitude and Great Circle sailing. They appear as drafts and revisions of twenty-eight chapters (lacking part of Chapters 19 and 20); but the order and headings of the chapters does not correspond with that of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’.

The subjects in this part of the ‘Direttorio’ cover many of those in the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’: how to navigate along known and unknown coasts; knowing which winds prevail; currents and the times of tides of places; how to use ‘Tables of Ephemerides’ for celestial observation; how to ascertain magnetic declination values with a meridian compass across the globe. In the field of cartography, Dudley considers how to determine latitudes and longitudes across the oceans, and explains the errors of “horizontal” or common charts in navigation. He proposes the use of mathematical instruments, as well as celestial observation, to accomplish correct navigation.

Interestingly, he also proposes to establish longitude by the use of a clock “oriuolo mecuriale”. As in the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, Dudley focusses on his preferred method of navigating by Longitude and Great Circle sailing - using his own invention of tables of “traversali sfericali”, and his charts based on what we now call “Mercator’s projection”, giving his latitudinal values.

Here the ‘Direttorio’ is heavily re-worked with some passages entirely re-written by the author in the margins, and in places makes direct reference to the text of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. This suggests that some parts of the ‘Direttorio’ may well have been written during, or after, the text for the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, was being printed. On page 3 of Dudley’s autobiographical ‘proemio’, Dudley adds “come Arcano” –“like the Arcano”; on page 122, a reference to the “master of the Arcana, who holds the secret of longitude” is mentioned; further on pages 21- 22 when in discussing the method of using the “spiral” charts (Cap 8 and 9), Dudley refers to the “carte hydrografice del 2[do] libro” – “hydrographic charts in Book 2”, which is exactly where they appear in the published ‘Dell’arcano del mare”.

These chapters of the ‘Direttorio’ are illustrated with numerous small drawings, and a number of larger diagrams, but the numbering of the figures, while referencing specific charts, do not correspond to the engraved figures in the published ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. It is possible that the references may correspond to the set of 268 manuscript charts now preserved in the BSB, in three volumes (Cod icon 138-140). Similarly, these chapters also contain text not found in the published ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. Dudley describes the likely effects of bad weather in high latitudes above 66°N, and the usual weather in temperate and tropical latitudes (pages 133-134); and ‘Cap XXIV’ contains Dudley’s explanation of how to find the North Star with a diagram (page115).

Pages p140-146 addenda

Apparently new text, in which Dudley formulates his ideas on the application of science to navigation on the high seas: “la 2 da parte di q[ues] to libro tratta de naviagare con scienza in alto mare Cap 6”; incomplete sections on astronomical and military subjects; and a few additional notes in other hands.

Dudley and the Medicis

Robert Dudley (1573-1649) first published his ‘Secrets of the Sea’ in 1646 when he was 73. It was the culmination of his life’s work, and a testament to his close bond with one of the greatest ruling families of Italy, it is dedicated to Ferdinand II de’Medici. For his services to three Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany (Ferdinand I, Cosimo II, and Ferdinand II), as philosopher, statesman, civil and military engineer, naval architect, hydrographer and geographer, mathematician and physician, Dudley was rewarded with status during his lifetime, a public funeral and a memorial monument upon his death.

Dudley was the son of the Earl of Leicester (the one time favourite of Elizabeth I) and Lady Douglas Sheffield, the widow of Lord Sheffield. Although born out of wedlock, Robert received the education and privileges of a Tudor nobleman. He seems to have been interested in naval matters from an early age, and in 1594, at the age of 21, he led an expedition to the Orinoco River and Guiana. He would later, like all good Tudor seamen, sack Cadiz, an achievement for which he was knighted.

His success upon the high-seas was not matched, unfortunately, by his luck at court, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century he was forced to flee, along with his cousin Elizabeth Southwell, to Europe. Eventually, in 1606, he ended up in Leghorn, Italy, which he set about turning into a great international naval and commercial seaport, in the service of Ferdinand I.

Dudley, successful at last, married his cousin, converted to Catholicism, helped Ferdinand wage war against the Mediterranean pirates, by designing and building a new fleet of fighting ships for the Italian navy, served as Grand Chamberlain to three Grand-Duchesses of Tuscany in succession: Maria Maddelena, widow of Cosimo II; then Christina of Lorraine, widow of Ferdinand I; then to Vittoria della Rovere, Princess of Urbino, and wife of Ferdinand II, who created Dudley Duke of Northumberland.

Gian Carlo de’ Medici (1611-1663).

It is not surprising that Dudley should dedicate his ‘Direttorio’ to his greatest patrons, Grand Duke Ferdinand II, and Gian Carlo de’ Medici. Nor that they should have owned examples of his greatest work, ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. What is very pleasing is that this working manuscript for the ‘Direttorio’, should also once have been in the possession of at least two other previous owners of both Gian Carlo’s first edition ‘Dell’arcano del mare’: Pietro Bigazzi, Florentine bookseller; and Sir John Temple Leader.

Gian Carlo de’Medici shared Dudley’s passion for all things maritime. The second son of Cosimo II de’Medici, Gian Carlo was made “High Admiral of the Tuscan Navy” in 1638, held the title of “General of the Mediterranean Sea”, and appointed “General of the Spanish Seas” by Philip IV of Spain during the 40 years war. In 1644, he reluctantly resigned his naval appointments when Pope Innocent X appointed him Cardinal. As a young and attractive man, he found the religious life a trial, and in 1655, the Pope returned him to Florence, after he became a bit too friendly with Queen Christina of Sweden. There he remained until his death, working in close collaboration with his brothers, in the government and cultural enrichment of the grand duchy. Gian Carlo was “passionate about science, letters and above all music.

Founded the Accademia degli Immobili and contributed to the construction of the Teatro della Pergola, inaugurated in 1658.... and enrichment of the Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti” (Cardella, Lorenzo. ‘Memorie storiche de' cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa’. Rome, Stamperia Pagliarini, 1793, VII, 51).

The close bond between Dudley and Gian Carlo is attested to by a letter written in September of 1638 from Dudley to Gian Carlo, who had just been appointed High Admiral of the Tuscan Navy, offering his homage and swearing his fealty, saying, that “if his nautical experience of many years merited employment in the service of his Highness, he, though old, would be always ready to obey the Admiral’s commands” (John Temple Leader in his ‘Life of Sir Robert Dudley,...’ 1895, pages 115-116).

Domenico Maria Manni, Pietro Bigazzi, and the Biblioteca Moreniana (Moreniana Library).

A Florentine bookdealer and collector, Pietro Bigazzi was also a librarian, and clerk of the Academia della Crusca, from 1854. His large library had come from a number of sources, including that of Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788) director of the Bibilioteca Strozzi, who has supplied the four pages of bio-bibliography at the beginning of the ‘Direttorio’. See ‘Manoscritti e alcuni libri a stampa singolari esposti e annotati da Pietro Bigazzi’, Firenze, Tipografia Barbera, 1869, in which it is noted: “manuscript ceded, many years ago, to Mr. Temple Leader, a distinguished English gentleman, domiciled among us; solicitous repairer of the Tuscan Memoirs”.

The Biblioteca Moreniana “was created when the Provincial Deputation of Florence acquired the bibliographic collection that had belonged to Pietro Bigazzi.

The collection of literary writings, the majority of which were part of the library owned by Domenico Maria Manni and Domenico Moreni, consists mostly of records on Tuscan history and culture. Later, several other literary collections from well-known scholars and collectors of Tuscan antiquities were added. In 1942, the library was housed in Palazzo Medici Riccardi and opened to the public. Other historically significant collections of manuscripts were added later. Today the library is managed by the Metropolitan City of Florence” (Biblioteca Moreniana, online).

John Temple Leader (1879-1903)

Possessed both the first and second editions of Dudley’s ‘Dell’Arcano dell mare’, and this manuscript, the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’. He describes his relationship with Pietro Bigazzi, the Florentine bookdealer from whom he purchased all three items, in his biography of Dudley: “Long ago I bought from Signor Pietro Bigazzi, together with many other books which had belonged to Dudley, the first two volumes and the fourth of the ‘Arcano del Mare’, the first edition of his great work which was published at Florence in 1646-47. The third volume was wanting, perhaps lent to some friend who had forgotten to return it. Two or more years after this, Signor Bigazzi brought me, as a New Year’s gift, the missing volume of this very same incomplete set. He had discovered it on the low wall or ledge of the Palazzo Riccardi, and bought it from the salesman who had permission to sell his books there. My joy on thus unexpectedly receiving the missing part may be easily imagined by collectors and lovers of old books. The four volumes thus happily reunited after a long separation were in the old binding with the arms of a Cardinal of the Medici family” (pages 18-19).

Other Dudley manuscripts related to ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ Manni noted that the Palatina di Pitti library held two imperial folio volumes, in manuscript, of “Marine Treatises” by Dudley. They were on marine architecture, begun before 1610 in English, and continued by Dudley in Italian until about1635 (see Maria Enrica Vadala: ‘Il Trattato dell’architettura maritima di Roberto Dudley, storia e dispersione di un manoscritto’, Studi secenteschi, vol. 61 (2020), pp. 193-237) The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek holds several manuscripts by Dudley related to the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, including: a of 268 manuscript charts, in three volumes, (Cod icon 138-140); and another relating to naval architecture and the conduct of naval warfare (Cod.icon 221) British Library (Add MS 22811)

Provenance

1. Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788), polymath, editor and publisher, also a member of Academia dell Crusca, and Director of the Biblioteca Strozzi, who has supplied 4 pages of bio-bibliography at the front of the manuscript;

2. Pietro Bigazzi, Florentine collector, librarian, and bookseller, a number of annotations in pencil, including on the flyleaf (“Ms citato del Targioni negli aggrandimenti Vole 10 pag.80”), sold to:

3. Sir John Temple Leader (1879-1903), who also bought Gian Carlo de’ Medici’s (1611-1663), first edition of ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’, and a second edition, from Bigazzi;

4. By descent to Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury (1903-1917), who sold Leader’s collections “piecemeal”

HOLLAR, W[enceslaus]

Oxforde.

Publication

Sould by Iohn Overton at the whitehorse neere the fountaine tauern without Newgate, ?[1643].

Description

Etched view, margins reinstated.

Dimensions

320 by 385mm. (12.5 by 15.25 inches). Plate size: 290 by 387mm.

References

NGA 1943.3.4936; NHG Hollar 2523 II; Pennington 1054.

£2,500

Hollar made the present print of Oxford during the period in which the city was housing the court of King Charles I, after the king’s expulsion from London in 1642. The view is oriented to the south and spans central Oxford from the district of St Clement’s in the east to Osney Abbey in the west, encompassing the city’s many impressive buildings, as well as the surrounding fields. A 48-point key in the upper left-hand corner identified most of the significant structures and sites including the university colleges, churches, markets and bridges. Also prominent on the plan is “the castle prison”, a Norman medieval castle which was mostly destroyed in the Civil War and was then used exclusively as a prison.

In the lower left-hand corner is a map of Oxfordshire, with parts of the surrounding counties of Glostershire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinhamshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire also shown. The view also shows “the armes of the citie of Oxforde”, a cow, and a scale bar ornamented with a pair of compasses. In the left- and right-hand margins of the print there are eighteen coats of arms for the different colleges, depicted in order from the oldest to newest, which was at this time Jesus College established in 1571. Above the main image is a “prospect of Oxforde from the East” in which 16 spired buildings are identified by name, set against a backdrop of rolling hills.

DUDLEY, Robert Dell’arcano del Mare di D.

Ruberto Dudleo Duca di Northumbria, e Conte di Warwich …

Publication

Florence, Giuseppe Cocchini, 1661.

Description

Six parts in two volumes, folio (550 by 425mm), two printed titles with engraved vignettes, traces of removed library stamps, double-page plate of the author’s patent of nobility, 216 engraved plates (of which 66 have volvelles or moveable parts), 146 engraved charts (of which 88 are double-page); contemporary calf, panelled, foliate roll-tool border, foliate corner and central tool, spine in seven compartments separated by raised bands.

References Phillips [Atlases], 457, 458, and 3428; cf. Shirley [Atlases], M.DUD-1a-1e; Wardington, 199-211.

£900,000

The first atlas on Mercator’s Projection

The ‘Arcano de Mare’ is one the “greatest atlases of the world” (Wardington). This sumptuous atlas, first published in 1646 when its author, Robert Dudley, was 73, was not only the first sea atlas of the world, but also the first to use Mercator’s projection; the earliest to show magnetic deviation; the first to show currents and prevailing winds; the first to expound the advantages of ‘Great Circle Sailing’ – the shortest distance between two points on a globe; and “perhaps less importantly the first sea-atlas to be compiled by an Englishman, all be it abroad in Italy” (Wardington)

Robert Dudley (1573–1649) was the son of the Earl of Leicester (the one time favourite of Elizabeth I) and Lady Douglas Sheffield, the widow of Lord Sheffield. Although born out of wedlock, Robert received the education and privileges of a Tudor nobleman. He seems to have been interested in naval matters from an early age, and in 1594, at the age of 21, he led an expedition to the Orinoco River and Guiana. He would later, like all good Tudor seamen, sack Cadiz, an achievement for which he was knighted.

His success upon the high-seas was not matched, unfortunately, by his luck at court, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century he was forced to flee, along with his cousin Elizabeth Southwell, to Europe. Eventually he ended up in Florence at the court of Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany, where he not only married his cousin and converted to Catholicism, but also help Ferdinand wage war against the Mediterranean pirates. In his spare time he set about his great life’s work: the ‘Arcano del Mare’.

The atlas is divided into six books, or sections: book one deals with longitude; book two covers errors in the then-existing sea charts, and includes the portolano for the Mediterranean and 15 general maps; book three deals with naval and military discipline, notably the former, and there is a long section on naval tactics, especially remarkable for a plan of the construction of a navy in five grades of vessel; book four describes the method of designing and building ships of the “Galerato” and “Galizaba” types and is concerned with naval architecture, giving the lines and dimensions of ships; book five is devoted entirely to navigation and methods of measuring the sun’s declination and the relative positions of the stars; book six contains the sea atlas.

For the beautifully engraved charts, Dudley employed the services of Antonio Francesco Lucini. Lucini states in the atlases that the work took him 12 years to complete and required 5,000lbs of copper. The charts are by English and other pilots, and it is generally accepted that the work was both scientific and accurate for the time. It is assumed that Dudley used the original charts of Henry Hudson, and for the Pacific Coast of America used his brother in-law Thomas Cavendish’s observations.

Contents

Book 1. [4], 30pp., printed title with plate of a navigational instrument, [2] engraved facsimile of the Patent, 30 engravings on 28 sheets, 22 of which have moveable volvelles (of these, 2 have a string).

Book 2. 24pp., 15 engravings on nine sheets, 9 of which have volvelles, and 15 large engraved charts (six double-page or folding), of which four relate to America, five to the European coasts, four to Asia, and two to Africa.

Book 3. 25pp., 8 engraved plates on 6 sheets (three plates being of ships in battle formation, etc.) including four sheets with plates of fortifications and cities with walled defences.

Book 4. 12pp., 18 engravings on 14 sheets, of which seven are double page, all designs of ships in plan and in section.

Book 5. 26, [2]pp., 145 engravings on 89 sheets, 38 have moveable volvelles and additional 5 have a string.

Volume II

Book 6. [4], 41pp., title with plate of the Great Bear, 131 engraved charts (82 double-page), 58 covering Europe, Greenland, and Canada, 17 of Africa, 23 of Asia, and 33 of America.

Rarity

Rare. The last example to come on the market sold for £731,000 in Christies London, 2019, and, before that, $824,000 in the Frank Streeter sale, Christies New York, 2007.

Provenance

1. Sir John Temple Leader (1879-1903); first Villa Maiano, and then at the Castello di Vincigliata near Fiesole, which he purchased in 1855 and restored in neo-medieval style, furnishing and richly embellishing it with paintings and furniture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Leader possessed both the first and second editions of Dudley’s ‘Dell’Arcano dell mare’, and Dudley’s manuscript, the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’. He describes his relationship with Pietro Bigazzi, the Florentine bookdealer from whom he purchased all three items, in his biography of Dudley: “Long ago I bought from Signor Pietro Bigazzi, together with many other books which had belonged to Dudley, the first two volumes and the fourth of the ‘Arcano del Mare’, the first edition of his great work which was published at Florence in 1646-47. The third volume was wanting, perhaps lent to some friend who had forgotten to return it. Two or more years after this, Signor Bigazzi brought me, as a New Year’s gift, the missing volume of this very same incomplete set. He had discovered it on the low wall or ledge of the Palazzo Riccardi, and bought it from the salesman who had permission to sell his books there. My joy on thus unexpectedly receiving the missing part may be easily imagined by collectors and lovers of old books. The four volumes thus happily reunited after a long separation were in the old binding with the arms of a Cardinal of the Medici family” (pages 18-19).

2. By descent to Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury (1903-1917), who sold Leader’s collections “piecemeal”.

HOLLAR, W[enceslaus]

A Map or groundplot of the Citty of London and the Suburbes thereof that is to say all which is within the iurisdiction of the Lord Mayor or properlie calld ‘t Londo[n] by whijch is exactly demonstrated the present condition thereof since the last sad accident of fire. The blanke space signifeing the burnt part & where the houses are exprest those places yet standi[n]g.

Publication London, Sold by Iohn Overton at the Whitehorse in little Brittaine, next doore to little S. bartholomew gate, 1666.

Description Engraved map, with inset map and key, trimmed to neatline. 1004.

Dimensions 265 by 342mm. (10.5 by 13.5 inches).

References NHG Hollar 1916 II; Pennington 1004ii; BM 1856,0607.6.

£10,000

Hollar’s post-fire survey of London

The Great Fire of London broke out in a bakery on Pudding Lane, on Sunday 2nd September 1666 and raged for three days destroying most of the City of London. By the end, the fire had consumed some 13,000 buildings from Temple in the west to The Tower in the east, and Cripple Gate in the north, with thousands of people being left homeless. Just five days after the flames had been tamed, the King commission Wenceslaus Hollar and Francis Sandford “to take an exact plan and survey of our city of London with the suburbs adjoining as the same now stands after the sad calamity of the late fire with a particular depiction of the ruins thereof”.

Hollar was an obvious choice as he had been preparing, since 1660, a large bird’s-eye view of the city, some “10 foot in breadth, and 5 foot upward”. Although his grand view was backed by the King, the project struggled for funding, and the Great Fire would make many of his endeavours redundant. Nonetheless, the two men worked quickly to survey the wreckage and by mid-November Hollar had engraved the first map showing the extent of the damage: ‘A Map of the Groundplott of the Citty of London with the Suburbes thereof...’.

Soon after, or more probably concurrently, he would engrave this map, for the map and printseller John Overton. The map is on the same scale as the former work, and bears an almost identical title. However, Hollar has slightly increased its extent to include Lincoln Inn’s in the west, and more buildings east of The Tower of London. The area devastated by the fire is shown devoid of house, only the street layout and the ground plans of the churches and principal public buildings are marked. The key, which as been moved to the lower right-hand corner, lists 101 churches, 82 of which had been consumed by the fire, together with a list of 24 public buildings and gates (A-Z), and 14 whares, staires, and docks (a-o).

Hollar has also included, for the first time on any post fire map, an inset of the whole of London, ‘A General Map of the whole Citty of London with Westminster and all the suburbs...’, which puts into context just how devastating the fire was for central London.

This map together with John Leake’s survey of the city of 1667, which Hollar would also engrave, would form the basis for the reconstruction of the city. Hollar work was extensively used by the likes of John Evevlyn and Robert Hooke, for the reconstruction of the city, and copied by many European mapsellers. The plan is even mentioned in glowing terms by Samuel Pepys in his diary, 22 November 1666:

“My Lord Boruncker did show me Hollar’s new print of the City, with a pretty representation of that part which is burnt, very fine indeed; and tells me that he was yesterday sworn the King’s servant, and that the King hath commanded him to go on with his great map of the City, which he was upon before the City burned, like Gombout of Paris, which I am Glad of.”

And by John Evelyn:

“I have since lighted upon Mr. Hollar’s late Plan, which looking upon as the most accurate hitherto, has caus’d me something to alter what I had so crudely don [sic]”.

The present example is the second state, which was printed and sold by John Overton.

VISHOECK, Huybert [and] Theunis JACOBSZ

The North-Sea Contaigning the Demonstration of the Coast of Holland... [and] The Second Booke, Off the North-Sea, containing The Description of the North-Sea...

Publication Rotterdam, Huybert Vishoeck, 1669.

Description

Small 4to (190 by 150mm), two works bound together 44; 63, [1]; four engraved charts in book 1 and five engraved charts in book 2, charts with a few closed tears, a little marginal dampstaining, Stevenson ownership signature, contemporary vellum.

References

Ushaw College Library Ushaw XIII.B.3.19; c.f. Koeman IV Jac 63 and 64 for charts; Shirley Atlas in the British Library M.Vlas-1a for similar English edition.

£15,000

An unrecorded pilot of the North Sea

An unrecorded rutter or “Wad-boekje” of the North Sea, and the coasts of Holland and Northern France.

These small pilot guides, modelled on the larger rutters, but containing new charts, were first published by Louis Vlasbloem in 1646. The format, which became hugely popular with sailors and fishermen, was subsequently copied by both Arnold Colom, and Theunis Jacobsz, with publisher’s producing pilots for both the Dutch and English Market.

All the charts - apart from the Pascarte van Engelant’ - contained in this work were first publisher in the 1650s by Jacobsz in his ‘’Nieuwe Lees-Caert Ofte Loots-mans’. The only extant copy of which is housed in Leiden University Library, and dated 1653. Although Jacobsz must have produced the small pilots for the English market, no known examples exist. Pilots by Vlasbloem in English and bearing an almost identical title to the present work - dated 1656 - are housed in the British Library, and Library of Congress. A work with the same title and pagination - as the present example - was published by Gerard Vander Vluyn in Rotterdam in the same year (1669). The only extant copy of which is housed in the Ushaw College Library, Durham; only containing eight charts, it has not been able ascertain whether they are the same as the present work.

Nothing is known about the publisher of the work Huybert Vishoeck; a search of OCLC, records only Johannis Vishoeck - most likely his father - working Rotterdam during the 1650s, publishing religious works. Gerard Vander Vluyn is known to have published an English edition of Theunis Jacobsz ‘The Lighting Colomne..’ in 1667.

Charts

First book

1. JACOBSZ, Theunis. Pascaerte vande Noort-Zee... Erased chart number.

2. JACOBSZ, Theunis. Pascaerte vande Zuyder Zee. Chart number 2.

3. JACOBSZ, Theunis. Pascaerte vande Watten... Chart number 4.

4. JACOBSZ, Theunis. Pascaerte vande Weeser... Chart number 5.

Second book

5. [JACOBSZ, Theunis]. Vile stroom en ‘t Texel... Chart number 3.

6. [JACOBSZ, Theunis]. Cust van Holland Tusschen Texel ende de Maes. Chart number 4.

7. [JACOBSZ, Theunis]. Pascaerte van de Maes... Chart number 3.

8. [JACOBSZ, Theunis]. Pascaerte van Zeecusten van Vlanderen... Chart number 4.

9. JACOBSZ, Theunis. Pascaerte van Engelant... Chart number 15.

From the Library of the Stevenson Family. The Scottish family, who include the author Robert Louis Stevenson, and where responsible for the construction of most of Scotland’s lighthouses.

LOGGAN, David

Oxonia Illustrata sive Omnium Celeberrimae istius Universitatis Collegiorum Aularum, Bibiliothecae Bodleiane, Scholarum Publicarum, Theatri Sheldoniani; nec non Urbis Totius Scenographia.

Publication

Oxoniae, E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1675.

Description

First edition. Folio (435 by 300mm). Engraved title-page, dedication to Charles II, preface leaf, privilege leaf dated 17 March 1672/3, double-page plan of Oxford and 39 copper-plate views, 1 folding, 38 double-page, extra-illustrated with Richard Rallingson’s ‘Ichnographia Oxoniae’, 1648 plan of the defences of Oxford during the civil war from Anthony Wood’s ‘Historia et antiquitates universitatis oxoniensis’, 1675, engraved index. Finely bound in contemporary and polished red morocco. Backstrip with raised bands and gilt decoration, compartments gilt panelled, upper and lower covers with double fillet outer and inner borders, centre panel with gilt lunette border, fleuron corners, a.e.g.

References

Brunet III 1145; Wing L-2837; Clary 147; Cordeaux & Merry (Univ.) 284.

£25,000

Oxford from above extra-illustrated with Richard Rallingson’s ‘Ichnographia Oxoniae’, 1648 plan of the defences of Oxford during the civil war

First edition of Loggan’s work with views of Oxford and the University. The first illustrated book on Oxford and one of the major works of the seventeenth century, the product of several years devoted and conscientious effort in which Loggan was assisted by his pupil Robert White.

David Loggan (1634-1692) was originally of Anglo-Scottish heritage, but lived in Gdansk for the first two decades of his life. He trained there under Willem Hondius and under Crispijn van de Passe in Amsterdam. He moved to England around 1657. By 1665 he was living in Nuffield near Oxford and in 1669 was appointed engraver to the University. He sold a printing press to the university, and was also commissioned to produced title pages and plates for books produced by the tutors, as well as a book on academic robes. In 1675 he got married and became a naturalised Englishman.

His Oxonia Illustrata was intended as a companion work to Historia Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis by Anthony Wood with whom Loggan had become acquainted some years earlier. The list of plates in the Index Tabularum in the Illustrata shows page references for binding into Wood’s volumes and the work is sometimes found in this state. Apart from the first depictions of the colleges and halls there are fine views of the major buildings including the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre, and a spectacular folding view of Christ Church on two copper-plates. The latter often results in the two parts not matching in either register or depth of impression - in this instance it is a perfect impression of the plate. There is also a double-prospect of the city (two of the earliest views of Oxford), a plate of the costume of the University and a superbly engraved plan of the city containing an extraordinary amount of accurate detail and with a numbered key to the colleges, churches, and major buildings.

Provenance

1. Inscribed by John Fitzwilliam in iron gall ink to front free endpaper. The inscription is probably that of John Fitzwilliam (d1699). Fitzwilliam was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he entered as a servitor in 1651, and was elected to a demyship in the same year. At the Restoration, according to Anthony à Wood, ‘he turned about and became a great complier to the restored liturgy.’ In 1661 he was elected fellow of Magdalen, and held his fellowship until 1670. He was made librarian of the college in 1662, being at the same time university lecturer on music. In 1666 he was recommended as chaplain to the Duke of York, and, afterwards, James II, to whose daughter, the Princess Anne, he became tutor.

HOLLAR, W[enceslaus]

A New Map of the Citties of London Westminster & ye Borough of Southwarke, with their Suburbs, Shewing ye. Strets, lanes, ALlies, Courts etc. with othe remarks as they. are now, Truly & Carefully delineated.

Publication

London, Robert Green at ye Rose and Crown in Budg-Row, And by Robert Morden at ye Atlas, in Cornhill, 1675.

Description

Etched map with view. 1005.

Dimensions

462 by 597mm. (18.25 by 23.5 inches). Plate size: 440 by 590mm.

References NHG Hollar 2328 II; Pennington 1005ii.

£20,000

Flourishing London

Spanning central London from St James’s’ Part in the west across to Stepney in the east, and from Lambeth in the south up to Clerkenwell. As indicated in the title, the various geographical and topographical features of the city are shown in great detail, some labelled directly on the map but the majority identified by the 93-point key in the upper right- and left-hand corners of the map. Among these are “Westminster Abby”, St James’s House, Hay Market, “Charing Crosse”, Drury Lane, ‘The Strond, the Savoy, “Bloemsbury Market”, Russell Street, Cheapside, “Mooregate” and “Pauls Churchyard”.

Above the map is “A Prospect of London as it is Flourishing at this Present Time”. Hollar’s print had originally shown a “prospect of London as it was Flourishing before the Destruction by Fire”, and the changes made here do not appear to be by the same hand. These changes include the addition of “the Monyment”, a new tall steeple on Bow church, and the alteration of the design of the Royal Exchange. The view still remains largely similar to the original, however, showing the city as seen from St George’s church in Southwark, and extending from the Savoy in the west to Limehouse in the east. Numerous churches and other prominent sites are labelled, including “the Globe” and the nearby “Beere bayting house”. On the river are several three-masted merchantmen, along with many smaller vessels.

OGILBY, John and MORGAN, William

[Title, and upper border vignettes, with the prospect of London to accompany Ogliby’s 1682 map of London].

Publication [London, next door to the Blue Boar in Ludgate Street, 1681/2].

Description

Oblong quarto (360 by 480mm) first four leaves and leaf after panorama in manuscript containing transcripts of Ogilby and Morgan’s advertisements, 16 sheets pasted on to leaves, consisting of title, border vignettes, and panorama to Ogilby’s map of London, nineteenth century half red morocco, over red buckram boards, title in gilt to upper cover and spine. 1007.

References

Howgego 28; Barker and Jackson, pp. 3841; NHG Hollar 2346; Pennington 1007; cf. Dallaway, James. Inquiries into the origin and progress of the science of heraldry in England’, Gloucester, 1793; Worms, Laurence and Baynton-Williams, ‘British Map Engravers’.

£16,000

‘A Variety of Ornaments’

These vignettes and panorama were intended to accompany Ogilby and Morgan’s plan of London published in 1682. The only large-scale map (scale: 300 feet to one inch) to cover the whole of London until Rocque’s plan of 1746.

Morgan announced the completion of the map in the London Gazette, May 1682, and in November of the same year, he advertised a ‘Prospect of London and Westminster’ and ‘A Variety of Ornaments’ to be sold with the map or separately, as here.

The ‘Variety of Ornaments’ mentioned in the advertisement consisted of the elaborate title piece,together with engraved views of the Statue of Charles I, Westminster Abbey, Whitehall, The Banqueting House, Somerset House, Mercers Chapel, Royal Exchange, Guildhall, St Paul’s and the Statue of Charles II, Temple Bar, and John Ogilby presenting the Subscription Book, the latter two of which are not present here.

The prospect of London and Westminster, which is almost eight feet in length, “provides an unequalled Panorama of London and Westminster from the Thames, as rebuilt and developed after the Great Fire” (Howgego)

The complete map with prospect is known in only one extant example: The Royal Library, Copenhagen. The British Library contains examples of the map and the prospect separtely. Howgego records a further three examples of the prospect: Pepys Library, Cambridge; The British Museum, Print Rooms; and The Guildhall Library. We are unable to trace another example of the prospect or vignettes appearing on the market since the Second World War.

15

ATKINSON, James

An Actuall Survey of Long Wall

Sally Wall and Gallo Alis Gally Wall.

Publication [London], April, 1696.

Description

Original manuscript map, pen and ink, with fine colour wash, on two joined sheets of vellum.

References Generations in Towns: Succession and Success in Pre-Industrial Urban Societies; Taylor, Mathematical Practioners, 312b.

One of the earliest plans of

Bermondsey

One of the earliest maps of Bermondsey, by local cartographer, James Atkinson, whose premises were in Cherry Garden. The beautiful map shows the iconic embanked roads, “Long Wall”, “Sally Wall”, and “Gally Wall”, that followed the old boundaries of the priory of St Mary Overie in Southwark, which encompass large parts of modern-day Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, in the sixteenth century, these embankments had been known as Longe Wall, Sallow Wall and Gallows Wall, names which conjure some grisly images of their historical function.

The map provides information in the immediate vicinity of the roads (or “walls”). Bermondsey was sparsely populated at the time, with the majority of the land set aside for agriculture, and especially fruit cultivation, such as cherries, and pleasure gardens, and it is possible that the map remains unfinished, with only four fields surveyed and fifth above “Pinfould Meads”, only outlined in green. A contemporary manuscript note on the verso states: “Map Bermondsey 1696 of Long Wall, Sally Wall, Gally Wall. Measurement of 80 rods is a quarter of a mile”.

Whatever the map’s state of completeness, it does include reference to two landmarks that had emerged in the Restoration period: the Cherry Garden pleasure gardens and Jamaica House, a handsome baroque-style house built from the proceeds of trade in the West Indies that later became a tavern.

The diarist Samuel Pepys visited both with his family and servants on Sunday, April 14, 1667, writing: “Over the water to the Jamaica house, where I never was before, and then the girls did run wagers on the bowlinggreen, and there with much pleasure spent but little, and so home”.

Also marked is the Blue Anchor (“Blew Ancker”), which formed part of the old monastic buildings. It has been suggested that the name derives from Anchorite nuns, who often wore blue vestments. The land is currently occupied by the Blue Anchor pub, which opened its doors in 1876.

James Atkinson Senior (c1645-1719)

The map is the work of James Atkinson Senior, who had premises at Cherry Garden Stairs on Rotherithe (or Redriff) Wall - marked “Reddrif Wall” on the map - and also in St Saviour’s Dock.

Mathematical instrument maker, chart maker, and teacher of navigation, Atkinson Sr., was apprenticed to the instrument maker and mathematician Andrew Wakely whose premises was on Redridff Wall in the late 1650s, and admitted to the Clockmakers’ Company as Brother in 1668. James would take over Wakely’s business, and mostly premises, in around 1670, with his son, also James Atkinson, continuing the business following is death in 1719. James junior run the business with his wife who had an “equal partnership in Trade” until 1729.

Atkinson’s most enduring works were the ‘Epitome of the Art of Navigation’, first published in 1686; and ‘The Mariner’s Compass Rectified’, first published by his master Andrew Wakely in 1633. Both works would continue to be published by Mount and Page, with little revision, throughout the eighteenth century. He would also collaborate with some of the leading mapmakers and publishers of his day, including John Seller and John Thorton.

An advertisement in ‘The Mariner’s Compass Rectified’, provides further information on Atkinson’s business:

“At Cherry-Gardens-Stairs on Rotherhith-Wall, are taught these Mathematical Sciences, Viz.

Arithmetik (sic), Geometry, Trigonometry, Navigation, Astronomy, Dialling, Surveying, Gauging, Gunnery, Fortification, Merchants Accompts, and Algebra.

The Use of the Globes, and all the Mathematical Instruments; the Projection of the Sphere on any Circle, By James Atkinson.

There are also made and sold all sorts of Mathematical Instruments, in Wood or Brass, for Sea or Land, with Books to shew the Use of them: Where also you may have all sorts of Maps, Plats, Sea-Charts, in Plain or Mercator, at Reasonable Rates”.

The advertisement emphasises the numerous courses that were taught at their premises, all of which were intended to furnish the merchant mariner with the tools needed to trade with all the corners of the world. The growth in these classes, coincided with the advent of the coffee house. The great meeting places of Restoration London, where goods and ideas were freely traded; and it is most likely that Atkinon’s premises was - as Larry Stuart suggests - both shop and coffee house.

Whatever the shop’s structure, both father and son were suitably well known, that in 1713 they were one of the major signatories of a petition against the Schism Bill - the purpose of which was to curtail the ability of nonconformists to engage in any form of teaching at all. Although - due to the death of Queen Anne, and the ascendancy of the Whigs - the bill never became an Act, it was not the first time that the Atkinson’s faith had led them into to trouble with the state. In 1684, James was called as witness for the defence in the trial of the nonconformist preacher Thomas Rosewell for treason. James and his children had been present at a sermon in which Rosewell had allegedly spoken ill of the King, and, although Rosewell was found guilty he would late be pardoned by the King.

Rarity

Seventeenth century large scale manuscript maps of any area of London are exceptionally rare on the market.

KIP, Johannes

A Prospect of the City of London [with] A Prospect of Westminster.

Publication London, 1718.

Description

Two engraved panoramic views, each of London and Westminster, each on two sheets joined, engraved titles in French and English, keys on the foreground.

Dimensions Image: 500 by 1200mm (19.75 by 47.25 inches).

References Adams 22.37; BM 1880,1113.1183 and 1880,1113.1184.

£12,000

A fine pair of views of London and Westminster from ‘Nouveau Théâtre de la Grande Bretagne’ published by David Mortier.

The Prospect of the City of London shows the city as seen from a high point on Southwark and it extends from St Clements Church to the Tower of London. The dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and the many church towers dominate the skyline; London Bridge links the two shores and many ships travel on the Thames.

The Prospect of Westminster stretches from Parson’s Green in the west to Temple in the east, including in the background the country around and the towns of Kensington, Hampstead and Highgate. Houses and landmark buildings are shown in elevation, as well as smaller details such as trees and people. The River Thames spreads throughout the foreground, populated by numerous ships transporting merchandise or people. The most important places of interest such as churches and famous houses are named in the key and these include Westminster Abbey, the Parliament, Buckingham House, St James’s Park, St Martin’s Church and Somerset House.

Johannes Kip (1653-1722) was a draughtsman, engraver and print dealer. He briefly apprenticed with the printmaker Bastiaen Stopendaal in Amsterdam before setting up his own business. Shortly afterwards he followed William and Mary to London, where he settled in St. John Street and conducted a thriving printselling business.

[WILLDEY, George]

[Composite atlas].

Publication London, [c1721].

Description

Large folio (482 by 317 mm). 21 double page maps, 19 in original outline hand colour, brown calf, gilt, turn-ins gilt, spine divided into six compartments by raised bands, gilt fillets and title in gilt lettering.

References Shirley, T-Anon 3a; Worms, Laurence and Baynton-Williams, Ashley, British Map Engravers, (London: Rare Book Society, 2011).

£75,000

Willdey’s rare composite atlas

A composite atlas by George Willdey, made up of unusual round maps with information about the areas portrayed included in small roundels in the black border surrounding the cartographical elements. Although the atlas has no title page, it was in all likelihood compiled by Willdey’s establishment. The maps are almost identical to the series advertised by Willdey in ‘Post Man’ (issue 4112) on the 23rd-25th November 1721: “a Set of 20 different New Sheet Maps, of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe, with particular Historical Explanations to each Map, so as to make it when put together, with its proper Colours and Illuminations, one of the largest, beautifullest, most useful, and diverting Ornaments, as well as best Set of Geography ever yet done of this kind; the Names of the Maps aforesaid, are a Northern Celestial Hemisphere, a Southern, ditto England, Scotland, Ireland, 20 Miles round London, 20 Miles round Oxford, 20 Miles round Cambridge, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweedland, Poland, Denmark, Muscovy, Hungary, the Turks Dominions in Europe, Flanders, and the Seven United Provinces. This Set of Maps may be fitted up several ways and sizes, or bound in a Book, or Sold single, to fit Gentlemens Conveniency; it is done by the Direction and Charge, and Sold by George Willdey...”

Clearly, the customer in question chose to have the maps bound into an atlas rather than pasted together, adding a map of the electorate of Brunswick-Lunsberg, the ancestral holdings of the Hanoverian dynasty of British monarchs. There was substantial British interest in the European territories of their rulers.

Two maps are signed by Samuel Parker (b.1695, fl.1718-1728), draughtsman and engraver. At least three of the maps - the southern hemisphere, England and Wales, and Sweden and Norway - can be attributed to him, and given the similarity of the others in style it is probable that he engraved them as well (Worms and Baynton-Williams).

To find the maps together as an atlas is rare. Shirley notes a composite atlas held by the British Library containing 19 of the 21 maps in the present example. In the British Library copy, the map of Sweden and Norway is dated c1790 and signed by James Barlow, indicating that the Library copy is dated later than the present example, which appears to have been compiled at the time of the advert. The British Library also holds an example of later states of the maps, printed by Thomas Jefferys, made up into a screen.

George Willdey (?1671-1737) was a flamboyant London shopkeeper and self-publicist. His principal business was as a toy-man and seller of luxury goods, jewellery, gold and silver trinkets, and china. However, he was perhaps the first mapseller to widen the appeal of maps from an intellectual elite to the general public; adverts like the one above show his attempts to broaden their appeal.

[Mortgage deeds containing a plan for the area of Shad in London].

Publication [1721-1725].

Description

Set of three vellum mortgage documents, first document consisting of 4 sheets (three sheets of manuscript text, and one manuscript map); second document consisting of 3 sheets with manuscript text; third document on one sheet with manuscript text, the first two documents stabbed and sewn, all with wax seals, some minor loss to old folds and dust soiling, map with some discolouration.

Dimensions (approx.) 880 by 800mm (34.75 by 31.5 inches). Map: 690 by 760 (27.25 by 30 inches).

References Allen, ‘Landlords and Economic Development in England, 1450–1800’, (Aristocracy, Patrimonial Management Strategies and Economic Development, 1450–1800, 1998); Barrow, ‘The Mirror of Parliament for the... Session of the... Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland’, (Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Londmans, 1829); Howell, ‘Deeds Registration in England: A Complete Failure?’, (The Cambridge Law Journal, 1999); Nunez, ‘Aristocracy, Patrimonial Management Strategies and Economic Development, 1450-1800’, (Universidad de Sevilla. 1998); Stow, ‘A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Borough of Southwark, and Parts Adjacent’, (T. Read, 1735); Van Bochove, Deneweth, Zuijderduijn, ‘Real estate and financial markets in England and the Low Countries, 1300–1800’, (Centre for Global Economic History, 2013); ‘The Parish of St Saviour, Southwark Views of New Buildings, 1635’, (London Metropolitan Archives); ‘The London Magazine, Or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer’, (R. Baldwin, 1755).

£2,500

Eighteenth century manuscript map of Shad Thames, London

Rare evidence of the way in which land and property were traditionally exchanged under English law, with a large-scale manuscript map of Shad Thames, London.

The process of leasing, renting, buying and selling land or property in England has historically been (and many would argue still is) a complex and tedious affair. From 1536, it was required by law that all transfers of land must be officially enrolled by a court or local clerk of the peace. The contracts made between buyer and seller, or landlord and tenant, were recorded as physical documents known as ‘Close Rolls’. These often included descriptions and plans of the property, a history of its use and, most importantly, details of the cost and legal arrangements. This requirement called for specialised and costly intermediaries, such as scriveners and attorneys, to produce long and detailed deeds. It also gave rise to the increased prominence of private land surveys, as owners were keen to ensure that their property was properly valued. As a result, mortgage law emerged as an important aspect of the legal system, with professional attorneys specialising in the drafting and registering of deeds. Nunez argues that the greatest transformation of English property law occurred during the seventeenth century, when the modern mortgage appeared for the first time.

Perhaps because there was no clear system for the safekeeping of deeds, ‘information about property rights and existing mortgages became a valuable asset’ (Van Bochove). People could be called upon to produce their documents as evidence of ownership, to prove that they had the right to reside, or to show that they were entitled to payment. Some enterprising laymen took advantage of the situation by charging a fee for the service of retrieving one’s contract from the various court archives. These unwieldy paper documents persisted in use until the Land Registry was established in 1862, after which the registration of deeds on Close Rolls dwindled, although some private transfers continued to be enrolled in this way as late as 1903. These deeds illustrate this traditional process, and demonstrate just how detailed these contracts were required to be.

They consist of three documents pertaining to the property of various members of the Wheatley family. The first, dated from 1721, concerns a one year lease issued by mother and son, Deborah and Thomas Wheatley, to a tenant named Thomas Jenkin. The manuscript contract shows that, as leaseholder, Jenkin would have rights to a loft, yard and small warehouse, indicating that this property was intended for commercial or industrial use. Since there is evidence that at least one of the later Wheatleys worked as a ship chandler, it is possible that the family owned property in the London dockyards. There are records of a Jenkin family living in Southwark at the time, where the Wheatleys are known to have held other land. In fact, they appear to have been quite the property magnates, with records of various possessions across the capital,

WHEATLEY, Deborah and WHEATLEY, Thomas

A lease for a year from Deborah Wheatley and Thomas Wheatley to Thomas Jenkin.

Publication London, 1721.

Description

Folder of three vellum sheets with two wax seals:

1) Manuscript inscription (785 by 905mm). Two holes. Stamp affixed to margin. Scalloped lower margin.

2) Manuscript inscription (785 by 893mm).

Two small tears and minor loss to left margin. Stamp affixed to margin.

3) Manuscript inscription (820 by 850mm).

WHEATLEY, William

Mr William Wheatley mortgage & demise to Mr Richard Symons for the return of the payment of 1050 in 2 payments.

Publication London, 1722.

Description

Four vellum sheets with manuscript inscriptions and one manuscript plan, general minor browning and foxing, with a few nicks to the margins.

Folder of four sheets with one wax seal:

4) Manuscript inscription (770 by 865mm). Two holes. Stamp affixed to margin, one wax seal.

Scalloped lower margin. Inscription to verso.

5) Manuscript inscription (760 by 850mm). Two holes and one tear. Stamp affixed to margin.

6) Manuscript inscription (775 by 845mm). Two holes on the fold.

7) Manuscript plan of the property with original hand colouring (725 by 750mm). Scalloped lower margin.

from ‘the tenure of William Wheatley….[in] St.Mildreses in London’ to the riverside estate examined in the second of these documents.

This deed is longer than the first, and records a contract made the following year by William Wheatley. The eldest son of the aforementioned Deborah, William had inherited a large estate in Shad Thames after the death of his father, Henry Wheatley, in 1713. Included in this document is “a plan or map of the estate of Mr William Wheatley in St Olave’s Southwark”. This manuscript plan shows an extensive property, made up of multiple buildings through which cut several labelled streets leading “to Shad Thames” and “to horsely down”. These notes make it possible to place the property on the South bank of the river, adjacent to the later site of Tower Bridge. The draftsman has depicted the estate in great detail, with the doors, staircases and interior walls represented on the map. Along the lower border, the Thames is highlighted in blue wash, with the steps descending into the river attesting to its importance as London’s preferred means of travel. A compass and scale are also included on the map, ensuring that the owners had access to precise and coherent information about their property.

The deed records that, throughout the following decade, William had let out several parts of this estate. His tenants included another Wheatley, although it is not specified how they were related, and a Moses Johnson. Johnson is known to have owned Pickleherring Pottery, which operated in St Olave’s Parish of Southwark during the eighteenth century, indicating that the Wheatleys rented out commercial space to companies, as well as private tenants. The first three sheets of this deed include a description of the buildings, and an evaluation of their value, but are largely dedicated to the legal contract that saw the property transferred into the hands of Richard Symons for the cost of one thousand pounds. Symon’s name (and Tory affiliation) is found on a list of members of the Court of Common Council from 1716, suggesting that he was primarily a businessman. Interestingly, a note to the verso states that the property was sold for a “payment of 1050 in 2 payments”, showing that Symons incurred an additional charge, perhaps as a result of the two-part payment, or maybe as a fee for the drafting of the contract.

The third and final document in this collection was drafted in 1725, and concerns all of the Wheatley children. It records that, in addition to his eldest son, Henry Wheatley had left a share of his wealth to his widow Deborah, each of his younger sons, Charles, Joseph and Benjamin Wheatley, and his daughter, Elizabeth Booth. This single sheet contains the contract made between the family and a widow from Essex, named Elizabeth Dodd. Dodd held the lease of some land owned by the Wheatleys, and notes to the verso indicate how her payments were divided between the family members. Each of them have signed and sealed the contract, along with Elizabeth’s husband, Robert.

WHEATLEY, Deborah, BOOTH, Robert, BOOTH, Elizabeth, WHEATLEY Charles, WHEATLEY, Joseph and WHEATLEY, Benjamin... To the Wm.Wheatley...Elizabeth D...of a...By virtue of Mr Henry Wheatley’s Will.

Publication London, 1725.

Description

Single vellum sheet (778 by 980mm) with manuscript inscription, stamp affixed to margin, six wax seals, inscription to verso.

Not only do these three documents outline the legal procedures involved in the transfer of property during the eighteenth century, but they also provide direct insight into the affairs of a prosperous merchant family. Although the Wheatleys appear to have continued to flourish throughout the following century, a bill passed by Parliament in 1887 allowed the heirs of a future William Wheatley “to sell certain parts of the said Manors and hereditaments, and apply the money arising therefrom in manner therein mentioned”. This suggests that the wealth generated by their industrious forebears was eventually dissipated and diminished, making these unique contracts crucial to the preservation of their family legacy.

KIP, Johannes

A Prospect of the City of London, Westminster and St. James’s Park.

Publication London, [Thomas Millward?, after 1726].

Description Engraving, printed on 8 sheets, joined, some areas of restoration and of loss, evenly age-toned.

Dimensions 990 by 2075mm. (39 by 81.75 inches).

References

BM 1880,1113.1181.1-12 (first state).

Ralph Hyde and Peter Jackson, Jan Kip’s Prospect of London (Richmond: London Topographical Society, 2003); Ralph Hyde, private notes.

£75,000

“The largest view of London ever to be published”

A fine example of Kip’s view of London, the “largest view of London ever to be published” (Hyde and Jackson). Johannes Kip (c1652-1722) was a Dutch engraver and printer who moved to London, following William of Orange and his wife Mary after the Glorious Revolution. Kip’s prospect was not only innovative in scale, but also in perspective. Most prospects of London focused on the city, usually viewed from the south of the river. Kip used “an entirely novel viewpoint - the roof of Buckingham House” (Hyde and Jackson). The cost to the prospect of giving the Palace such prominence is a radical distortion of the more distant townscape. A satisfactory profile view of the City of London is achieved only by doubling the Thames back on itself. The focus of the print is on St James’s Park, an epicentre of urban life. There is a herd of deer, who were tame enough to eat out of visitors’ hands, and a flock of cows who were driven to the Whitehall end of the park every day to be milked (Kip has changed this to the Buckingham House end). The inhabitants range from the trio of women selling oranges (wearing kerchiefs as a sign of respectability), to the men playing pall-mall, a game similar to croquet which gave the London street its name, to the family of beggars just outside the gate. The most important characters, however, are George I, shown in his coach, and the Prince and Princess of Wales in their own coach just behind, escorted by a group of Horse Guards. Kip’s decision to include them, as well as to use the viewpoint from Buckingham House, is a clear statement about his loyalty and about where the power in Britain now lay - in Westminster.

Publication was delayed by the Jacobite rebellion in 1715, and by the rift between the King and the Prince of Wales. Kip was left in a difficult position. Not only was the view dedicated to Caroline, Princess of Wales, who had defiantly chosen to go into political exile with her husband, even though it meant losing access to her children, but it also showed the Prince and Princess riding in a coach immediately behind the King. Luckily, the two were eventually reconciled and Kip was able to publish his view in 1720.

Hyde identifies it as the third state, distinguished by the updated James Gibbs steeple on the church of St Martin in the Fields on sheet six (numbered 14) and the continuation of the neat lines around the references and title below the image. It must have been published after 1726, when St Martin in the Fields was reconsecrated, possibly by Thomas Millward who also published the second state (Hyde).

RUPPRECHT, Marcus Abraham and HAFFNER, Johann Christoph after an unknown artist

Prospectus Londinum Sedes Regia, et proecipua Urbs in Anglia ad Temesium Fluvium.

Publication

Augsburg, Marcus Abraham Rupprecht and Iohann Christoph Haffner, [1730].

Description Engraved print with contemporary colour.

Dimensions 320 by 430mm. (12.5 by 17 inches).

References BL 1880,1113.1192.

£750

A rare stylised view of London, probably designed as a perspective print, given the reversion of the title at the top of the print. The British Library has a wider version of the print.

CAMPBELL, Colen, et al.

Vitruvius Britannicus or the British Architect. Containing the plans, elevations and sections of the regular buildings, both public and private in Great Britain.

Publication London [1731]-1771.

Description

5 volumes. In large folio (545 by 370mm).

390 engraved plates, contemporary calf, gilt, blue and red morocco labels to spine, bindings very slightly worn.

Collation

I: 12 pp., 84 plates (14 double-page).

Engraved title and dedication.

II: 12 pp., 78 plates (21 double-page).

Engraved frontispiece.

III: 12 pp., 74 plates (24 double-page).

Engraved title and dedication.

IV: 12 pp., 79 plates (19 double-page).

Engraved title and dedication.

V: 10 pp., 75 plates (23 double-page).

£35,000

A complete example in five volumes, including the supplements published between 1767 and 1771, of the most celebrated book on architecture published in Great Britain in the eighteenth century.

Vitruvius Britannicus, or the British Architect... first appeared in three volumes between 1715 and 1725, and established NeoPalladianism as the dominant architectural style of the time. It was the first architectural work to originate in England since John Shute’s Elizabethan First Groundes, and stands as a monument to the societal change in the British Isles brought about by the Enlightenment.

Colen Campbell (1676-1729) was a descendant of the Campbells of Cawdor Castle in Scotland. He was influenced as a young man by James Smith (c. 1645–1731), the pre-eminent Scottish architect of his day, and an early neo-Palladian whom Campbell called “the most experienced architect” of Scotland (Vitruvius Britannicus, ii).

The first three volumes form a catalogue of design, containing engravings of English buildings by Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, as well as Campbell himself, and other prominent architects of the era. In the introduction, and in the brief descriptions, Campbell belaboured the “excesses” of Baroque style and declared British independence from foreigners, while he dedicated the volume to Hanoverian George I. The third volume (1725) has several grand layouts of gardens and parks, with straight allées, for courts and patterned parterres and radiating rides through wooded plantations, in a Baroque manner that was rapidly becoming old-fashioned. Publication came at a propitious moment at the beginning of a boom in country house and villa building among the Whig oligarchy. Campbell was quickly taken up by Lord Burlington, who replaced James Gibbs with Campbell at Burlington House in London and set out to place himself at the centre of English neo-Palladian architecture. In 1718, Campbell was appointed deputy to the amateur gentleman who had replaced Wren as Surveyor General of the Royal Board of Works, an appointment that Burlington is certain to have pressed, but a short-lived one. When Benson, the new Surveyor, was turned out of office, Campbell went with him.

Buildings were shown in plan, section and elevation, and some in a bird’s-eye perspective. The success of the volumes was instrumental in popularising neo-Palladian architecture in Great Britain and America during the eighteenth century. For example, Plate 16 of Vitruvius Britannicus, a rendering of Somerset House in London, was an inspiration for American architect Peter Harrison when he designed the Brick Market in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1761.

The final two volumes were published between 1765 and 1771 by Woolfe and Gandon serve as a continuation of Campbell’s work with plans and elevations of buildings largely in the Palladian style, most dating from after 1750. The lengthy publication period makes it unusual to find an example in a uniform binding.

John Rocque’s magnificent map of early Georgian

London

ROCQUE, John

A Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster and Borough of Southwark, with the contiguous Buildings. From an Actual Survey taken by John Rocque, Land Surveyor and engraved by John Pine.

Publication London, John Pine and John Tinney, 1746.

Description Engraved plan on 24 sheets.

Dimensions 2100 by 4000mm. (82.75 by 157.5 inches).

References Howgego 96 (1).

£100,000

It would appear that John Rocque, a French Huguenot, emigrated with the rest of his family to London in the 1730s, where he began to ply his trade as a surveyor of gentleman’s estates, and with plans of Kensington Gardens, and Hampton Court. However, in 1737 he applied his surveying skills to a much great task, that of surveying the entire built-up area of London. Begun in the March of 1737, upon a scale of 26 inches to 1 statute mile, the map would take nine years to produce, eventually being engraved upon 24 sheets of copper and published in 1746. The plan stretches west to east from Hyde Park to Limehouse and north to south from New River Head to Walworth.

ROCQUE, John

An Alphabetical Index of the Streets, Squares, Lanes, Alleys, &c. contained in the Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark, with the contiguous buildings; engraved by John Pine Bluemantle Pursuivant at Arms, and Chief Engraver of Seals, &c. to His Majesty; from a actual Survey made by John Rocque; And printed on Twentyfour Sheets of Imperial Paper; With References for the easy finding the said Places.

Publication London, Printed for John Pine, at the Golden Head oppsite Burlington House in Piccadilly; and John Tinney, at the Golden Lyon in Fleet Street, 1747.

Description Quarto. Modern grey paper boards, title to spine.

Dimensions

280 by 225mm. (11 by 8.75 inches).

Collation

i-xii, pp.46, index, table of contents.

References BLMC Maps * 3480.(331.).

£1,500

Rocque’s Index to his monumental 24-sheet plan

of London

In the preface to the work Rocque sets out the urgent need for an accurate plan of London, in order to settle once and for all the argument of which was large Paris or London. Rocque goes on to discuss the surveying techniques used, and the encouragement they gained from the Mayor of London in his endeavour. The preface is followed by list of subscribers, an explanation to the index and and a forty-six page list of alleys, banks, barns, barracks, bars, bridges, buildings, buries, and butts; closes, commons, corners, courts, and crosses; lanes; markets, marshes, mewses, mounts, orchards, parks, passages, places, and posterns; rents, roads, rows, sides, and stairs; squares; walks, walls, ways, and wharfs; yards; miscellanies; alm’s houses, hospitals, and workhouses; churches, chapels, meeting houses, church yards, and burying grounds; Company and Corporation halls and houses, and Inns of Court; inns; keys; publick and remarkable buildings and places.

PARR, Nathaniel

A North View of Westminster Bridge.

Publication London, Printed for & Sold by Robert Sayer Map & Print Seller at the Golden Buck opposite Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, 1751.

Description Engraved print.

Dimensions 365 by 565mm. (14.25 by 22.25 inches).

References BL Maps K.Top.22.37.g.; RCIN 702539.

£300

A North View of Westminster Bridge

Westminster Bridge was designed by the Swiss architect Charles Labelye and completed in 1751. The project is notable for the first use of caissons, an invention which enables construction underwater. Westminster Bridge was the first bridge to be built nearer the city than Kingston for 600 years - it provoked the removal of the buildings on London Bridge and the construction of Blackfriars Bridge as the City tried to keep traffic in their domain.

There is a description of the construction of the bridge and its cost - £389,500! - underneath the view.

WOOD, Joseph

To the Right Honble. Philip Earl of Hardwicke, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, and one of the Fellows of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies &c, &c. This South East View of the City of London, Engrav’d from a very Antient Picture is humbly inscribed by his Lordships most Dutiful most Obedient & Devoted Servant, J. Grove.

Publication London, J. Grove, 1754.

Description Engraved print.

Dimensions 360 by 580mm. (14.25 by 22.75 inches).

References BL Maps K.Top.21.58.

£450

Ships on the Thames

A print of ships on the Thames. It is dedicated to Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, the former Lord Chancellor and politician who had helped the Duke of Newcastle become Prime Minister the same year this print was made, and was rewarded with an earldom as a result.

[BENNETT, Richard]

A New and Correct Map of London including all ye New Buildings.

Publication [London, 1760].

Description Engraved map, fine original hand-colour, blank on verso, mounted as a fan on wooden and bone sticks.

Dimensions 240 mm diameter (9.5 inches).

References Not in the Schreiber Collection; BL, Maps 188.v.35.

£8,000

Rare fan map in original colour

A very rare fan map of London. “Few art forms combine functional, ceremonial and decorative uses as elegantly as the fan. Fewer still can match such diversity with a history stretching back 3000 years. Pictorial records show some of the earliest fans date back to around 3000 BC, and there is evidence that the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans all used fans as cooling and ceremonial devices, while Chinese literary sources associate the fan with ancient mythical and historical characters. The first folding fans were inspired by and copied from prototypes brought into Europe by merchant traders and the religious orders that had set up colonies along the coasts of China and Japan. These early fans were regarded as a status symbol. While their ‘montures’ (i.e. sticks and guards) were made from materials such as ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell, often carved and pierced and ornamented with silver, gold and precious stones, the leaves were painted by craftsmen who gradually amalgamated into guilds such as The Worshipful Company of Fan Makers... The eighteenth century also saw the development of the printed fan: cheaper to manufacture and therefore cheaper to purchase, fans were suddenly available to a much wider audience than had previously been the case” (The Fan Museum).

DAUMONT, Jean François

Londres Ville Capitale du Royaume d’Angleterre.

Publication

Paris, Chez Esnauts ey Rapilly rue St. Jacques à la Ville de Countances; chez Daumont, rue St. Martin, [1768-1775].

Description Engraved print with contemporary colour.

Dimensions 400 by 540mm. (15.75 by 21.25 inches).

References

Ralph Hyde, private notes; Scouloudi p.59.

£1,200

Jean François Daumont (fl.1740-1775) was a French printer and publisher. He moved to the Rue St Martin address in 1768, so the print can be dated after then and before the end of his career.

Ralph Hyde identifies another copy with the imprint of Jean de Beauvais as another state of the Antoine Aveline’s version of his father, Pierre Aveline’s view, as described by Scouloudi. It seems probable that this is a another, later state.

GREEN, V[alentine] and JUKES, F[rancis] after MARLOW, W[illiam]

[1[ View Near Westminster Bridge From a Picture in the Possession of David Garrick Esq.; [2] View Near Blackfriers Bridge From a Picture in the Possession of David Garrick Esq.

Publication [London], Published by J. Boydell, Cheapside, Feb 20, 1777.

Description Pair of engravings with aquatint, printed in serpia.

Dimensions Image: [1 & 2] 380 by 493mm (15 by 19.5 inches). Sheet: [1] 500 by 635mm (19.5 by 25 inches). [2] 495 by 640mm (19.5 by 25.25 inches).

References BL Maps K.Top.22.37.n.; BL Maps K.Top.22.38.h; Vic Gatrell, The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London’s Golden Age (London: Penguin, 2013), p.lxxv; London Review and Literary Journal, January 1813.

£4,000

Two tondi by a friend of Garrick

Two prints of the Thames after paintings by William Marlow (17401818), an English maritime painter. Marlow served an apprenticeship under Samuel Scott for five years, and in his early career specialised in similar maritime views. He was known amongst his peers for his somewhat unorthodox living arrangements. Joseph Farington recorded in his diary that Marlow moved to Twickenham to live in a ménage à trois with a butcher and his wife whom he had met in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (Gatrell). He went on to design scientific instruments, and, according to a contemporary obituary, the seals for the original thirteen states of the United States of America. The same obituary notes that he was close friends with David Garrick (London Review).

David Garrick (1717-1779) was an English actor and playwright: the most famous thespian of his time, instrumental in transforming the theatre in England into a more respectable pastime and profession, and a noted connoisseur. Garrick was not only a collector of maritime art, but was also concerned with river life itself. He was nominated to a commission to build a new bridge at Richmond in 1773 and briefly took out a mortgage on Fresh Wharf near London Bridge, before the debtor ran away to the far east. 1) 440 by 550mm (17.25 by 21.75 inches). 2) 500 by 640mm (19.75 by 25.25 inches).

STADLER, J[oseph] C[onstantine] after FARINGTON, Joseph

[A set of four views]. [1] View of Somerset Place, including the Adelphi, &c; [2] View of London Bridge, Including the Church of St Magnus and the Monument; [3] View of Black-Friars Bridge and St Pauls Cathedral; [4] View of Westminster Bridge including Westminster Hall and the Abbey.

Publication London, Pubd. as the Act directs by W. Byrne No. 79 Titchfield Street, 1790-1791.

Description

Four etchings with aquatint, coloured, view of Westminster Bridge trimmed to upper and side neatline.

Dimensions

Image: each 415 by 623mm (16.25 by 24.5 inches). Sheet: [1] 532 by 759mm (21 by 30 inches); [2 & 3] 562 by 751mm (22 by 29.5 inches); [4] 490 by 660mm (19.25 by 26 inches).

References

BM 1880,1113.1442 (Somerset Place);

BM 1880,1113.1550 (London Bridge); BM 1880,1113.1480 (Blackfriars); BM 1880,1113.1326 (Westminster); Joseph Farington, Diaries, Vol. 1: 1793-1802, (Hutchinson & Co., London: 1922).

£8,000

History of the River Thames

A set of four prints of the River Thames, produced for Joseph Farington’s series ‘History of the River Thames’. Farington made 76 drawings of the course of the Thames, which required some negotiation: his wife’s cousin, Horace Walpole, wrote to the Earl Harcourt asking for permission for Farington to sketch on his land. There was some delay between the drawings and publication while a suitable author was found to provide the accompanying text; Farington records in his diary on 15th July 1793 that publication “will now go on uninterruptedly as Mr. Coombe (sic) has promised to supply... manuscript as wanted” (Farington). William Combe was a somewhat surprising choice. Under his pen name, Dr Syntax, Combe had previously satirised travel books, in particular the work of William Gilpin. However, Combe was also notoriously bad with money, and probably welcomed the work.

The prints show Somerset House, which had been rebuilt only 16 years before by architect Sir William Chambers to be used as government offices, the new London Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, and the old Westminster Bridge.

Joseph Farington (1747-1821) was an English artist and diarist. He was an original member of the Royal Academy, and helped found the now defunct British Institution. He specialised in topographical views of Britain, which were particularly popular while continental war prevented travel. The ‘History of the River Thames’ was very successful. A copy was presented to George III, who “turned over every leaf ” with “approbation” (Farington).

Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl.1780-1822) a German engraver, who settled in London in the 1780s, and specialised in aquatint engraving.

EDY, J[ohn] W[illiam]

A view of Westminster Bridge, the Abbey & C. from King’s Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall, Lambeth Marsh.

Publication

London, John Harris Sweetings, N. 24 Cornhill & N. 8 Broad Street, February 17, 1791.

Description Etching with aquatint.

Dimensions

Image: 485 by 763mm (19 by 30 inches). Sheet: 555 by 785mm (21.75 by 31 inches).

References

BM 1880,1113.1323.

£2,000

John William Edy (1760-1820) was a painter and engraver. He trained at the Royal Academy Schools from 1779, and made a successful career in landscapes, often working with the publisher John Boydell, who sent him to make drawings for his best known work, ‘Picturesque Scenery of Norway’.

Edy’s view of the river shows the river bank at Lambeth in the foreground, with Westminster Bridge and Westminster Abbey in the distance. The river bank is teeming with life: there are porters unloading cargo, a ferry arriving with passengers, and a flower seller with a boat full of plants. On a flight of steps off the shore a fashionably dressed couple converse. There is a lavishly decorated barge moored in the centre, surrounded by more humble craft. An interesting inclusion is the ‘Artificial Stone Manufactory’ visible at the far left: this is most probably the business of Eleanor Coade, a remarkable businesswoman and sculptor who produced durable stone-like products out of ceramic. She took over the factory from Daniel Pincot, a former employee of Josiah Wedgewood. Coade stone was used on buildings from the Royal Pavilion in Brighton to the Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

MÜLLER, Johann Sebastian; after Antonio CANALETTO

A North East View of Westminster with the New Bridge, taken from Somerset Garden Vue de Westminster et du Pont-neuf au Nord-Est du Jardin de Somerset.

Publication London, Published by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street, 1794.

Description Engraved and etched view, with contemporary hand-colour in full.

References BM 1880,1113.1430 (for 1750 issue).

£120

View of the River Thames looking towards Westminster, with Somerset Gardens on the left and Westminster Bridge and Abbey in the middle distance; St John’s Church is just visible behind the left end of Westminster Bridge. First issued by Robert Sayer in 1750.

Engraved by Johann Sebastian Muller (1715-1792), who was originally from Nuremberg, who came to London in 1744. After a painting by Canaletto (1697-1768) who visited Britain repeatedly from 1746, building on contacts he had made in Italy and painting many scenes of British urban life.

STADLER, J[oseph] C[onstantine] after FARINGTON, J[oseph]

View of London from Lambeth.

Publication London, Pub. By J & J Boydell, Shakspeare Gallery, Pall-Mall, and N. 90, Cheapside, 1795.

Description Hand-coloured copper engraving with aquatint.

Dimensions

Image: 305 by 520mm. (12 by 20.5 inches). Sheet: 470 by 685mm (18.5 by 27 inches).

References Adams 75/59; Joseph Farington, Diaries Vol 1: 1793 - 1802 (Hutchinson & Co: London, 1922).

£750

A view from St Mary Lambeth’s tower looking across the Thames to Westminster Abbey, and up the river to the City of London. Westminster Bridge is in the centre, and Lambeth Palace, seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the right.

From the second volume of Farington’s ‘History of the River Thames’, (London: J. & J. Boydell, 1794). The work, issued with plates either printed in sepia or coloured, contained two double-page spreads of London, this view from the west and a companion view from the Royal Observatory in the east. Joseph Farington wrote in his diary, on 17 August 1794: “Went to the top of Lambeth steeple to look at the view of London” (Farington). On 18 August he writes: “Went this morning to Lambeth & from the top of the Steeple began the view of London.” Smirke dined with Farington on 3 September. J.C. Stadler, who would engrave the plates, joined them. The three men examined the drawings for the second volume of the book together, and voiced their approval of John Boydell’s idea of providing two general views of London.

DANIELL, W[illiam]

To the Right Honble. Lord Hawkesbury, &c. &c. This perspective Sketch illustrating a design submitted to the consideration of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the improvements of the Port of London Is inscribed by his obedient humble Servant Geo. Dance.

Publication London, Published as the Act directs, for Geo. Dance Esq. R.A. Upper Gower Street, 1800.

Description Engraving with aquatint.

Dimensions

Image: 320 by 630mm (12.5 by 24.75 inches). Sheet: 380 by 670mm (15 by 26.5 inches).

References Not in the BL or BM.

£3,000

William Daniell (1769–1837) was a painter and engraver, specialising in scenery. He often worked with George Dance the Younger (1741-1825), the architect and designer. Dance put forward a set of plans for improvements to the Port of London in his capacity as surveyor to the City, a post inherited from his father. He proposed that there should be two bridges, replacing the current London Bridge, to ease the traffic, linked by a piazza at each end, with monuments in the centre. The existing Monument to the Great Fire of London by Sir Christopher Wren would be retained, and a new naval monument erected on the opposite side. The challenge for the architects submitting designs was that tall river traffic had to pass through the bridge. Most submissions dealt with this by making the arches of the bridge higher. Dance chose to give each bridge a drawbridge in the middle, allowing ships to pass through one while traffic continued uninterrupted on the other.

The print is dedicated to Lord Hawkesbury, later to become Lord Liverpool and Prime Minister for 15 years. At the time he was Master of the Mint, and the chairman of the Select Committee formed to consider the problem of shipping and commerce in the Port of London.

TURNER, Daniel and SUTHERLAND, Thomas

View of Blackfriars Bridge and St Paul’s, from the Patent Shot Manufactory on the South Side of the River.

Publication London Publish’d by Laurie & Whittle, 53 Fleet Street, 1803.

Description Engraved print with aquatint.

Dimensions 300 by 430mm. (11.75 by 17 inches).

References Adams 1983 191.31 (1880 reprint); BL Maps Ktop XXII 38-f; BM 1880,1113.5853.

£500

Blackfriars Bridge and St Pauls

A view of Blackfriars Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral in the background. This was the third bridge to be built to cross the Thames, designed by Robert Mylne. The bridge was financed in a curious way - a large portion of the funding came from men who had refused posts in the Corporation of London. The posts required an oath of loyalty to the Anglican church, and if the recipient refused the office, or even a nomination for an office, he was fined, so it became a way of indirectly taxing non-conformists. By the time this print was made, the toll for crossing the bridge had been dropped. The shot manufactory tower shown was the cutting edge of military technology. Invented by William Watt in 1782, it was used to create bullets: lead was dropped through a sieve at the top of the tower, formed perfect spheres as it fell, and was caught in a vat of water to cool it. Watts built the tower in London in 1789, with Philip George and Colonel Samuel Worrell as his partners.

HAVELL, D[aniel] after HASELER, H[enry]

A View of London, from near the Adelphi.

Publication London, Pubd. by T. Clay, Ludgate Hill, March 13, 1815.

Description Aquatint with original hand colour.

Dimensions Image: 385 by 594mm (15.25 by 23.5 inches). Sheet: 525 by 755mm (20.75 by 29.75 inches).

References

BL Maps K.Top.21.57.4; Roderick Graham, Arbiter of Elegance: A Biography of Robert Adam (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2009), p.264.

£2,000

A view of Waterloo Bridge, with the sun setting behind it, after an original by the British landscape painter Henry Haseler, one of only three views of London that the artist produced. The Adelphi of the title are the Adelphi Buildings, a block of terraced houses designed by the Adams brothers. They named the buildings in an act of self-promotion (from adelphoi, meaning brothers) and through royal favour were allowed to develop the shore from the Strand to the river by Act of Parliament in 1771, fuelling derisive commentary from a contemporary satirist: “The Princess, fond of raw-boned faces, May give you all our posts and places; Take all to gratify your pride But dip your oatmeal in the Clyde” (Graham). Daniel Havell (1785-1822) was an English topographical engraver, whose works fuelled the booming demand for aquatint views during the reign of George III. Henry Haseler (fl.1814-25) was an English artist and engraver.

Vauxhall Bridge

WHITTLE, [James] and LAURIE, [Robert]

View of the Vauxhall Iron Bridge.

Publication London, Publish’d by Whittle & Laurie, 53 Fleet Street, Aug. 20, 1816.

Description Engraved print with original colour.

Dimensions Image: 260 by 417mm (10.25 by 16.5 inches). Sheet: 300 by 450mm (11.75 by 17.75 inches).

References Adams 191.29; BM 1880,1113.1234.

£350

The emphasis on ‘iron’ in the title of the print reflects the fact that the Vauxhall Bridge started life as a stone structure, designed by John Rennie. The Vauxhall Bridge Company aimed to create a new bridge between Battersea and Westminster, potentially opening up the area around Vauxhall to greater development. The scheme was headed by Ralph Dodd, an engineer and inventor who tried to build the first tunnel underneath the Thames. His involvement was cited as a reason for the initial rejection of the bridge by Parliament in 1806, and it was given the green light only after the Company promised to reimburse the owners of Battersea Bridge for any lost revenue.

The project began and the foundation stone had been laid before the funding ran out, and the bridge was redesigned in cheaper iron. It was initially named after the Prince Regent, the future George IV, but quickly renamed, possibly because of the unpopularity of the profligate prince.

HOLLAR, W[enceslaus]

Plan de Londres tel quil etoi avant l’incendie de 1666 grave par Hollar.

Publication London, Rob[er]t Wilkinson, ?[1816].

Description Etched plan, trimmed to platemark and laid on linen. 1000.

Dimensions 176 by 280mm. (7 by 11 inches).

References

NHG Hollar 2216 V; Pennington 1000iv; BM 1852,0612.152.

£500

With the arms of the Livery Companies of the City of London

Wenceslaus Hollar’s plan of “London before the fire in 1666” extends from Westminster eastwards to Stepney and from St George’s Fields in the south up to Clerkenwell in the north. The central city is packed with buildings that would soon be destroyed in the Great Fire, as shown on many of Hollar’s other maps, plans and views. Here they all remain intact and many are identified by either the alphabetical key on the left (a-z) or the numerical key on the right (1-45). The present example is the fourth state, which was included as an illustration in Blome’s ‘Britannia’ (1673) and is bordered by sixteen coats of arms of the City companies, which were not etched by Hollar. Interestingly, it has also been re-titled in French.

MOGG, Edward

The Strangers Guide to London and Westminster, exhibiting all the various Alterations & Improvements complete to the Present Time.

Publication

London, Published by Edward Mogg, No.51 Charing Cross, January 1st, 1827.

Description

Hand-coloured engraved plan, dissected and mounted on linen, list of hackney coach fares to verso, housed within original paper slipcase, with publisher’s label, rubbed and scuffed.

Dimensions

420 by 580mm (16.5 by 22.75 inches).

References

Intermediate state between Howgego 238 5d and 5e.

£900

For the Stranger to late Georgian London

The plan shows the limits of the City of London in red; the sight of the Bethlem (or Bedlam) Hospital in St George’s Fields, which when opened in 1815 contained no glass in the windows due to the “disagreable effluvias peculiar to all madhouses”, although it was furnished with a library and a ballroom for the inmates. Also depicted is the gradual construction of Sir Robert Smirke’s remodelling of the British Museum. The building site was at the time one of the largest in Europe, the work taking some 25 years to complete.

Edward Mogg (fl.1803-1860) was a cartographer, engraver, and publisher, active in London at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Rather unusually for the time he not only drew his own maps, but also engraved them. The business was mainly based upon the production of pocket travel guides and maps.

Scale: 4 inches to 1 statue mile.

BAYNES, T[homas] M[ann]

View of the Proposed St Katharine’s Docks.

Publication London, C. Hullmandel, [1829].

Description Lithograph.

Dimensions

Image: 303 by 466mm (12 by 18.25 inches). Sheet: 350 by 500mm (13.75 by 19.75 inches).

References BM 1880,1113.1688; MOL 002069.

£3,500

Docks by “The Colossus of Roads”

In the early nineteenth century the Port of London came under pressure, and new docks were needed. Parliament selected a site in the Docklands in 1825, and construction began in 1827. The new docks were designed by Thomas Telford, a prominent contemporary civil engineer known as ‘The Colossus of Roads’, after overseeing several highway-building projects. It was his only major project in London, carving out two basins from the Thames accessed through a lock. The docks were made so that ships could unload directly from the water into the warehouses, reducing the quayside traffic.

The new docks were named after St Katharine’s Hospital, founded by Matilda of Boulogne in 1147, which was demolished along with the slums that had grown up around it to make way for the new development. The area was particularly popular with foreign craftsmen, as it was exempt from the London guild restrictions.

WHITTOCK, Nathaniel after WYNGRERDE, Antony van den

London, Westminster and Southwark as they appeared A.D. 1543. From a drawing by Antony van den Wyngrerde, Sutherland Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford. The Monastery at Bermondsey from a drawing in the collection of Mr Upcot. Copied from the originals and engraved by Nathaniel Whittock.

Publication

London, Published by H.A. Rogers, 83 Hanley Road, [1849, but ?1896].

Description

Etched panorama, laid down on linen in 16 sections, folding into contemporary blue cloth covers, red morocco lettering-piece on front cover.

Dimensions Image: 400 by 725mm (15.75 by 28.5 inches).

References

Howgego, pp.5-6; J. Hayes, ‘Catalogue of Oil Paintings in the London Museum’ (London: HMSO 1970), pp.5-6; F. Barker and P. Jackson, ‘London: 2000 Years...’ (London: Cassell 1974), pp.48-55; D.B. Brown, ‘Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: Catalogue of Drawings’, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1982), pp.6-9; H. Colvin and S. Foister, ‘The Panorama of London circa 1544, by Antonis van den Wyngaerde’ (London: LTS, in assn. with the Ashmolean Museum 1996).

£1,500

Extending from the Palace of Westminster on the left to the Palace of Placentia on the right.

In producing his panorama, Whittock made use of a series of drawings in the Sutherland Collection, then in the Bodleian Library, today in the Ashmolean Museum. These drawings, by an artist from the Low Countries, Antonis van den Wyngaerde, together form a prospect over three metres in length, and constitute our earliest general view of London. For the Bermondsey Abbey detail Whittock acknowledges the use of another source. Wheatley (see reference below) describes the outcome as “entirely untrustworthy”.

Proposals were issued in about 1826 by Messrs. Harding, Tiphook and Lepard, booksellers, for a reduced facsimile of the original. It was never published. Nathaniel Whittock produced two tracings of the original, presenting one to Frederick Crace (which is now in the British Museum), and the other to the Corporation of London (now in Guildhall Library). The publication of his facsimile was announced in a handbill (copy in Guildhall Library’s Noble Collection). It was priced at 12s.6d, or 10s. unbound for framing. The publisher is given as Henry Gray, genealogical and topographical bookseller, 47 Leicester Square, W.C. The Folger Shakespeare Library has a loose advertisement dated 1896 announcing the [re]publication of the print. A prospectus, ‘with reduced facsimile’, would be sent ‘for one stamp.’ The London Topographical Society published a 7-sheet facsimile of the original drawings in 18811882 as their Publication No. 1, with notes by Henry B. Wheatley. Keys to the buildings shown in the Wyngaerde view appear in the LTS’s more recent Publication No. 151 (see Colvin and Foister).

The second state, published by Rogers.

STARLING, Thomas

Plan of the Parish of St John at Hackney Divided by His Majesty’s Order in Council into the rectories of Hackney, West Hackney and South Hackney, with the respective boundaries of each and distinguishing the Ecclessiastical District assigned to the Chapel at Stamford Hall, from an Actual Survey.

Publication London, Chas. Cliff, 1831.

Description

Engraved map with contemporary handcolour in full, dissected and mounted on linen, edged in blue silk, housed in red cloth slipcase.

Dimensions 845 by 965mm (33.25 by 38 inches).

References BL 4196.(4.), BL Crace Port. 19.43.(2.).

£4,500

A parish map of Hackney, divided into districts shaded in different colours. Each plot of land is marked with the initials of its owner, with a list of their full names on the left. Some notable people held property in the area, including William Rhodes (WR), the grandfather of Cecil Rhodes, founder of Rhodesia. At the lower right is a text outlining the parish divisions and giving information about schools, places of worship, the history of the manor and the population.

The ornate title explains that the map is based on a survey done on the commission of the officers of the parish and the lord of the manor, William Tyssen. The title lord of the manor denoted the ownership of an estate with certain rights, often covering the same area as a parish. William had married into the Tyssen family and took the name after his father-in-law Captain Amherst died without a male heir. Tyssen and his wife inherited all three parts of the Hackney manor (Lords Hold, Kings Hold and Grumbolds) as her uncles died, and also owned three country estates. It is dedicated to Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who had served as Prime Minister from 1828 to 1830, and whose government had broken down just before this map was published after his support for Catholic Emancipation and rejection of the Reform Bill.

Rare: only two examples known, both at the BL.

CRUCHLEY, [George Frederick]

Cruchley’s New Plan of London Shewing all the New and Intended Improvements to the Present Time.

Publication

London, Cruchley Map Seller from Arrowsmith’s, 38 Ludgate Street. St. Pauls, [1851].

Description

Engraved plan, dissected and mounted on linen, hand-coloured in outline, housed within original green marbled paper slipcase, with publisher's printed yellow label, rubbed.

Dimensions

500 by 990mm. (19.75 by 39 inches).

References Howgego 307 (20).

£850

Cruchley’s New Plan of London in Miniature

George Frederick Cruchley (1796-1880) was a publisher of “some of the clearest and most attractive London maps” (Howgego). Cruchley began his cartographic career in the publishing firm of Aaron Arrowsmith. In 1823, he set up on his own at 38 Ludgate Street until 1834, when he moved to 81 Fleet Street. It would appear that he had some help from his former employer, as much of his early output bears in the imprint “From Arrowsmith’s”. He would later acquire a great deal of Arrowsmith’s stock. In 1844, he took over the stock of George and John Cary, which he republished until 1876. In 1877 his entire stock was sold at auction with many of the plates being bought by Gall and Inglis. Cruchley himself died in Brighton in 1880.

This is the 22nd issue of his London map, which was updated to 1856.

Great Exhibition showing in Hyde Park.

Scale: 3 3/4 inches to 1 statute mile.

CLARK, J.T.

[Balloon View of London].

Publication ?[c1845-1850].

Description

Copper engraved map with aquatint, minor repaired marginal tears, occasionally crossing the neatline, minor foxing.

Dimensions 570 by 780mm. (22.5 by 30.75 inches).

Previously unknown and unrecorded balloon view of London.

John Henry Banks published The Balloon View of London in 1851, on the opening day of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. This was a southward-facing aerial view taken from a hot air balloon above Hampstead. At first glance, this present example appears to be a counterpart to Banks’s balloon view. Rather than gazing out from the north, it is drawn from the south, with St George’s Obelisk in the bottom centre. Regents Park is in the northwest, and Victoria Park is seen in the northeast.

It is tempting to identify this as the missing mirror image of Banks’s 1851 view. However, it is most likely an unpublished correction of Banks’s earlier panorama of London. Banks had previously issued A Panoramic View of London in 1845, which was also northward facing. The present example shows similarities to this panorama, although the latter is larger and hazier. Regents Park slopes in reverse symmetry to the park in Banks’s view. The streets are widened and the buildings narrowed, allowing for a clearer perspective of metropolitan London.

Anticipating the souvenir market of the Great Exhibition, Banks had incorporated street names into his 1851 view, labelling the newlybuilt Crystal Palace building and depicting the grand entrance of the Marble Arch that had been moved to Cumberland Gate in 1850.

None of these features are present on the current example’s ‘lost view’, which suggests that it was designed before 1850. This provides further evidence that this is most likely an unpublished modification of Banks’s 1845 panorama than a long-lost sister of the 1851 balloon view.

The Author

The only printed information accompanying this balloon view is that it was drawn and engraved by J.T. Clark. There is no title, date, imprint, or any other publication information, nor is there reference to Banks.

There is a John Thomas Clark listed on the London Census Returns from 1841 to 1861, recorded as an artist and engraver.

We can trace no evidence that Clark worked with Banks, nor that the J. T. Clark identified in the Census is the engraver behind this unpublished capturing of Victorian London.

WALTER, H. after ALLOM, Thomas [with] [?LE KEUX, J.H.]

[Three bird’s eye views of London].

Publication [1:] Paris & London, Wild Editeur, 15 rue de la Banque (Prés la Bourse), [2 & 3:] [Ernest Gambart] [c.1846] and [c.1840-1850].

Description

Lithograph, printed in three colours, offered here with two steel engraved key sheets. [1] Londres, Vue Prise de la Tour de l’Eglise de St Brides [2] A Descriptive Key to the Engraving of the View of London as taken From the Steeple of Saint Brides Church [3] A Descriptive Key to the Engraving of the View of London as taken From the Gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral.

Dimensions

1: Image: 347 by 560mm (13.75 by 22 inches). Sheet: 457 by 630mm (18 by 25 inches). 2 & 3, sheet: each 450 by 630mm (17.75 by 24.75 inches).

References

Art Union, June 1844, p.168; Art Union, April 1846, p118; The Builder, 1844, p.272; BM 1880,1113.1218; BM 1880, 1113.1220.

£3,500

Key to the City

The first state of the French edition of this bird’s eye view of the city, accompanied by two companion steel engraved key-blocks. Allom’s drawing for this print was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844. It was reviewed in ‘The Builder’ (1844). Curiously J.T. Willmore (one of J.M.W. Turner’s engravers) exhibited a drawing of the same scene and in the same exhibition. The ‘Art Union’’s reviewer described Allom’s drawing as “a maze of tiles and roofs, garret windows, and chimneys, with the upper part of St. Paul’s, and the steeples of the sundry churches rising out of the mass of deformity...”, but confessed he had “an utter aversion to all such barbarous, unartistic representations as bird’s-eye views” ( June 1844). The same journal carried a kinder review of the engraved version of the image and of a companion engraving: “...Their accuracy as to minute detail is absolutely wonderful; while as a whole the effect is singularly fine. It is positively marvelous to note not only each individual street but each separate house exhibited with remarkable fidelity... Mr. Allom has by these fine productions extended his wellearned and merited fame” (April 1846).

The Fleet Prison, the outer walls of which were demolished in February 1846, is still shown on the image intact.

The view is offered here with the rare key sheets to Allom and Walter’s pair of views of London, one taken from the steeple of St Bride’s Church and one from the gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral, which give 100 and 185 references respectively. Together they show the City of London from two opposing viewpoints, with a numbered key of the main buildings underneath, including churches and places of business. The British Museum has a copy of the key-block to the view of the Steeple of St Brides Church, and the Guildhall Library has a key, with numbers but without place names, presented by J.H. Le Keux. It is, therefore, likely that he was the engraver of both keys.

Thomas Allom (1804-72) was an architect and artist. He trained at the Royal Academy, and was one of the founder members of the Institute of British Architects in 1834. He specialized in topographical scenes.

The second state of the print bears the imprint “Paris chez Wild, Editeur, Passage du Saumon, No. 38”.

A related watercolour drawing, curiously signed ‘E. Duncan [1839?]’, was with Christie’s in April 2006.

The steel plate for the engraving was later acquired by the Fleet Street map and globe maker, G.F. Cruchley. It was auctioned at the sale of Cruchley’s stock at Hodgson’s, 16 January 1877.

A London View

DIEDRICH

Berlin, Druck u. Verlag v.A. Felgner, [mid-19th century].

Publication London.

Description Coloured lithograph.

Dimensions

330 by 460mm. (13 by 18 inches).

£300

A view of St Paul’s Cathedral and the River Thames.

London Bridge

[Anonymous]

Berlin, F. Sala & Co., Unter den Linden 51, [mid-19th century].

Publication London Bridge.

Description Lithographed print.

Dimensions 355 by 483mm. (14 by 19 inches).

£450

A river scene showing different vessels pulling up the the bank of the Thames.

MYLNE, R.W.

Map of the Geology and Contours of London.

Publication London, James Wyld, 1856.

Description

Large folding lithographed map with contemporary hand-colour in full, dissected and mounted on linen, folding into original cloth covers.

Dimensions 1220 by 1620mm. (48 by 63.75 inches).

References Hyde 16 (1); BL 3484.(1.).

£2,500

London Geology

First edition of Mylne’s map, published during a period of change in understanding of public health and urban planning. His expertise was in water supply; his paper on artesian wells was one of the works cited in his Royal Society nomination and he was engineer to the Limerick Water Company. Detailed geological surveys were key to tackling contemporary sanitation problems. There was already a growing body of cartography that dealt with statistics and the social environment, like Henry Chadwick’s 1842 map showing the levels of sanitation in Leeds. Surveys like Mylne’s could have a significant social impact; the year after the map was published, work began on Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer system, a pioneering exercise in public sanitation. The geological composition of the site for the proposed sewer network was important in planning its construction.

Mylne had already produced a geological map entitled ‘Topographical Map of London and its Environs’, the first comprehensive geological map of London and the first with contours. He announced the preparation of this map in 1850, which aimed to give a much greater level of details. Mylne’s work on the map had begun in 1847, when he started to plan the contouring using other surveys and documents, completing the task with the help of the Ordnance Survey plans produced in 1850. His work consolidated a huge body of information, including Joseph Prestwich’s work on the London tertiary strata, and manuscripts on the Woolwich district by Reverend de la Condamine. Mylne used James Wyld’s ‘Map of London and its Environs’ retaining the scale and area covered and only using landmark buildings, the junctions of main roads and railway lines to orient the viewer, the better to portray the geological foundation. The map shows the position of wells and the level of chalk. It also gave information on the course of canals and the level of water at locks, railway lines, the area of the principal docks and the width of their entrance gates, and even the level of the lowest spring tides.

Robert Mylne (1816-1890) was from a family of distinguished Scottish architects, geologists and engineers; his grandfather designed the first Blackfriars Bridge. His work on water supply and geology earned him a fellowship to the Royal Society in 1860. Until 1870, his maps were the only geological maps covering the whole of the London area, and were only later surpassed by the Ordnance Geological Survey’s publication.

[Anonymous]

[Lambeth Suspension Bridge].

Publication [c.1861].

Description Watercolour on paper.

Dimensions

240 by 600mm (9.5 by 23.5 inches).

£3,000

Lambeth Suspension Bridge

The first modern bridge at Lambeth was a suspension bridge, designed by Peter W. Barlow. Sanctioned by an Act of Parliament in 1860, it opened as a toll bridge in 1862, but doubts about its safety, coupled with its awkwardly steep approaches deterring horse-drawn traffic, meant it soon became used almost solely as a pedestrian crossing. It ceased to be a toll bridge in 1879 when the Metropolitan Board of Works assumed responsibility for its upkeep – it was by then severely corroded, and by 1910 it was closed to vehicular traffic.

DAW, Edmund

Map of the Parish of St Pancras in the County of Middlesex 1874. The map is made to the order of the Vestry of the Parish of St. Pancras and published by their Obedient Servant Edmund Daw.

Publication London, Published by E. Daw, 114 Fetter Lane, 1868.

Description Large engraved plan with contemporary hand-colour in full, laid down on linen in 27 sections, list of Ecclesiastical districts upper left, list of wards with their distinguishing colours lower right.

Dimensions 760 by 1600mm (30 by 63 inches).

£4,500

Daw’s detailed plan of mid-Victorian St Pancras

Rare and detailed plan of St Pancras, orientated with north to the right, and extending from the Royal Zoological Gardens, to Euston Station and from Highgate to University College London. The plan is coloured according to wards and has a key to ecclesiastical districts to the upper left. Large-scale Victorian plans are particularly rare, and this plan is no exception: one institutional example known, at the British Library. Approximately 5 statue miles to 1 inch.

London Geology

STANFORD, Edward

Stanford’s Geological Map of London shewing the Superficial Deposits. Compiled by J.B. Jordan of the Mining Record Office.

Publication

London, Edward Stanford, 1870.

Description

Hand-coloured engraved map geologically coloured extending from Watford down to Epsom and Barking across to Southall, dissected into 20 sections and mounted on linen.

Dimensions 660 by 609mm. (26 by 24 inches).

References Hyde 136 (1); Stanford G5754.L7C5 1870. J6.

£650

Edward Stanford (1827-1904) was a highly successful publisher, known for his accurate maps of London. He began his career working for Trelawny Saunders, an enterprising mapmaker who supplied a daily weather chart for the Great Exhibition. Stanford started his own business in 1853, was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society the following year and set about expanding the cartographical aspect of the firm. Stanford’s great rival was James Wyld, and both publishers produced a geological map of the entire London area in 1870.

The impact of the Ordnance Survey and contemporary interest in geology led the Superintendent of the OS to authorise Henry de la Beche, the Vice-President of the Geological Society to found the Ordnance Geological Survey (now known as the British Geological Survey) in 1835. A decade later, the Geological Survey Act was passed which mandated a survey of the entire country, and the OGS produced several of the area around London. This map was compiled for Stanford by James B. Jordan (1838-1915), who had worked for the Mining Records Office and the OGS. Jordan used OGS surveys and the maps of Robert Mylne and William Whitaker as sources; the second edition of the map tells the viewer that it was ‘surveyed principally by William Whitaker’, a fellow member of the OGS. The present example is the first edition.

The key at the top identifies the different types of soil deposits and geological formations found in the Greater London area.

The haven of the Romantic poets

LE POER TRENCH, W.; and R.E. CAMERON

Hampstead.

Publication London, James Wyld, 1871.

Description

Folding engraved map, dissected and mounted on linen, housed in original red cloth slipcase, with publisher’s label.

Dimensions 660 by 1015mm (26 by 40 inches).

£1,000

A map of Hampstead taken from OS London Middlesex II.89. It shows the large expanse of the Heath, which had become an important public asset for Londoners over the preceding decades. The advent of the Hampstead Junction Railway in 1860 made the area more accessible from central London, and the Heath provided a much needed open space for inhabitants of the East End. In the year this map was published, the Bank Holidays Act was passed and several other London fairs were closed down, which only increased the area’s popularity. The map also shows the ‘Vale of Health’. This name is first recorded in 1801, and in the early nineteenth century it was home to the circle of the writer James Leigh Hunt, who extolled the virtues of the Heath and the clean air, establishing Hampstead’s literary tradition. Byron and Shelley were meant to have shared a cottage nearby, and Keats stayed with Hunt while battling tuberculosis.

Although the map comes in a case from the firm of James Wyld, it carries the information of the firm of Edward Stanford at the lower edge. Stanford was the agent for all large-scale Ordnance Survey maps at the time.

Rare: no copies recorded by OCLC

DAW, Edmund

Map of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts Kensington, delineating its Ecclesiastical & Parochial Divisions. 1879. This Map was made to the Order of the Vestry by their Obedient Servant Ed. Daw.

Publication

London, Published Ed. Daw, 36 Fetter Lane, 1879.

Description

Engraved plan, hand-coloured in outline, dissected and mounted on linen, inset of Kensal Green, two leaves in manuscript to recto pinned to map, extensive manuscript annotations, folding into green cloth cover, lettered in gilt.

Dimensions 1120 by 750mm (44 by 29.5 inches).

References

This edition not traced in the British Library but c.f. BL Cartographic Items Maps 4077. (3.) for 1852 edition.

£8,500

The Parish Surveyor’s Copy of Daw’s Map of

Kensington

The plan stretches from north to south from Kensal Green Cemetery, to the Fulham Road, and west to east from the Royal Crescent on Holland Park Avenue to Sloane Street. The plan includes the areas of Holland Park, Earls Court, and the Brompton Oratory. Ecclesiastical and ward divisions are marked and coloured. The map is drawn on a scale of of eleven inches to one statute mile.

The plan shows the westward expansion of Victorian London in great detail. Between 1850 and 1880 Kensington was to undergo a complete transformation, from a rural landscape to an urban one. Estate development played an important role, which led to a greater architectural harmony as landowners frequently used the same architects and builders. They also co-operated in improving communications, in particular the laying out of roads. South Kensington, despite the speed of construction, was a high-class residential area composed mainly of large terraced houses of the ‘premier type’. In North Kensington large terraced houses, garden squares and fine villas were built, especially in Notting Hill. Smaller speculative projects were the norm in Chelsea. In southern Kensington alone 1600 houses were built in 10 years. By the time of the present plan’s publication the Borough accounted for ten percent of all buildings erected in London.

The plan proved so popular and the rate of expansion so quick that Edmund Daw, published editions in 1848, 1852, 1858 1863, and 1879.

This edition has the dedication to Archdeacon John Sinclair (17971875) omitted, with a dedication to the Kensington Vestry inserted., which was responsible for municipal administration. The rate expansion can be easily seen when one compares the previous 1863 edition. Both the South Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum) and the Natural History Musuem are clearly marked, though the latter would not open until 1881. Stations along the new Metropolitan are clearly marked, with the huge expanse of new houses to the north of the Hammersmith and City Line.

DAW, Edmund

Map of the Parish of St Pancras in the County of Middlesex 1874. The map is made to the order of the Vestry of the Parish of St. Pancras and published by their Obedient Servant Edmund Daw.

Publication London, Published by E. Daw, 114 Fetter Lane, 1880.

Description

Large folding engraved plan with contemporary hand-colour in full, laid down on linen in 27 sections, folding into original publisher’s green cloth covers.

Dimensions 760 by 1600mm. (30 by 63 inches).

References BL 31.a.38.

£4,500

The plan is orientated with north to the right, and extends west to east from the Royal Zoological Gardens, to the Euston Station and north to south from Highgate to University College London. With a list of Ecclesiastical districts upper left, list of wards with their distinguishing colours lower right.

Large scale Victorian plans are particularly rare, the present plan is no exception. We are only able to trace one institutional example, that in the British Library.

Approximately 5 statue miles to 1 inch.

BACON, G[eorge] W[ashington]

Map of Kensington and neighbourhood. Issued by Henry Lovibond and Son, Cannon Brewery, North End, Fulham, S.W.

Publication London, Bacon’s Map Establishment, 127 Strand, 1880.

Description

Lithographed map with contemporary hand colour in full, laid down on linen, folding into publisher’s original red cloth covers, lettered in gilt, pricelist and instruction labels on pastedowns, upper board detached.

Dimensions 760 by 1080mm (30 by 42.5 inches).

References

Pearson, Lynn, ‘Towers of Strength: Brewery architecture at home and abroad.’ 25 February 2006.

£1,500

“Hops, reformation, turkeys, carp, and beer, came into England all in one year”

George Washington Bacon (1830-1922) was an American publisher working in Britain. His first business failed and he declared bankruptcy in 1867, but reopened on the Strand in 1870 and built his house into one of the most successful in London.

The map of Kensington extends from Paddington to the north and Fulham to the south, and Hammersmith to the west and Green Park to the east. It prominently shows the Henry Lovibond & Son Cannon Brewery on the Lillie Road highlighted with red circles radiating from it in half mile increments, with the first being a quarter mile in distance.

Henry Lovibond (c1840-1910) was a brewer from Clerkenwell who acquired ‘The Hermitage’ villa and the remnants of its park on the corner of Lillie and North End Roads in 1867, and in the same year he built his Cannon’s brewery there.

Kensington was already an affluent borough after substantial redevelopment in the early nineteenth century, but in recent decades it had become a cultural centre as well. The Great Exhibition took place in Hyde Park in 1851, and the cultural complex known as Albertopolis began to form: the South Kensington Museum & School (now the Victoria & Albert Museum) opened in 1857, the Natural History Museum in 1881, and in 1881, and the Royal Albert Hall in 1871.

BUHOT, Félix

Westminster Palace.

Publication 1884.

Description

Etching, drypoint, salt lift ground, stippling and roulette, printed in brown and black.

Dimensions

Image: 290 by 400mm (11.5 by 15.75 inches). Sheet: 395 by 550mm (15.5 by 21.75 inches).

References

BM 1904,0219.109 (sixth state).

£3,000

The Palace of Westminster

The seventh state of Buhot’s print of Westminster Palace, capturing the fog of an afternoon on the River Thames.

Félix Buhot (1847-1898) was a French painter and printmaker. Buhot worked in both France and England, and was particularly interested in city views and conveying the effects of different types of weather, using a variety of printmaking techniques. The print has his trademark ‘symphonic margins’, inspired by the marginal decorations of medieval manuscripts, that draw out and enlarge upon elements of the same print.

The print carries Buhot’s stamp, the monogrammed owl, and his signature.

Artist’s signature and stamp.

A foggy day

[BUHOT, Félix]

Westminster Palace; Westminster Clock Tower.

Publication 1884.

Description

Etching, drypoint, roulette, aquatint and spit bite, printed in brown and black.

Dimensions Image: 285 by 398mm (11.25 by 15.75 inches). Sheet: 345 by 470mm (13.5 by 18.5 inches).

References BM 1904,0219.111.

£3,000

The fifth state of Buhot’s print of Westminster Palace and the Clock Tower (now the Elizabeth Clock Tower).

The print carries Buhot’s stamp, the monogrammed owl. Artist’s stamp.

BACON, G[eorge] W[ashington]

The Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone.

Publication

London, G.W. Bacon & Co. Ltd., 127, Strand, 1900.

Description

Lithographed plan with contemporary handcolour in full, laid down on linen and folding into original publisher’s red cloth covers, decorated in blind, lettered in gilt.

Dimensions 535 by 720mm (21 by 28.25 inches).

References Possibly in BL C.44.d.72.

£600

Victorian Marylebone

Detailed plan of Marylebone at the end of the nineteenth century. Each ward of the parish is highlighted and named with the western and eastern divisions outlined in red and green respectively. To the right is a list of the wards and their respective colouring. The plan highly detailed and shows, churches, schools, hospitals, clubs, theatres, tube stations, parks, squares, police stations, and notable houses. Of particular note is site of Lord’s Cricket Ground and the Zoological Gardens.

Scale: 9 inches to 1 statue mile.

Rare: only one institutional example known, at the BL bound in an atlas

Southwark

HARRISON, Arthur Metropolitan Borough of Southwark.

Publication London, Stanford’s Geographical Establishment, 1902.

Description

Lithograph map, dissected and mounted on linen, manuscript annotations in red, folding into original red cloth slipcase, lettered in gilt.

Dimensions 750 by 655mm. (29.5 by 25.75 inches).

References Unrecorded in COPAC and WorldCat.

£650

A lithographed map of the borough of Southwark, covering an area extending from Temple to the Tower of London to Kennington. The borough is enclosed within a red line; other red marks added by a later hand pick out schools. The map shows the 1825 London Bridge designed by John Rennie, with the church of St Magnus the Martyr on the north side. The Oval, marked as the Surrey Cricket Ground, had only been built half a century before and had hosted the first international test cricket match in England in 1880. The famous asylum, the Bethlem Royal Hospital, is shown in its third site, where it moved in 1815 in order to give the patients more room for outdoor activities. The building is now the Imperial War Museum.

STANFORD, Edward

Map of The Port of London - Docks and Wharves Area.

Publication London, Edward Stanford, [c.1904].

Description Lithograph map, coloured.

Dimensions 920 by 1250mm. (36.25 by 49.25 inches).

£1,500

London and the East End

Edward Stanford (1827-1904) was a highly successful publisher, known for his accurate maps of London. He began his career working for Trelawny Saunders, an enterprising mapmaker who supplied a daily weather chart for the Great Exhibition. Stanford started his own business in 1853, was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society the following year and set about expanding the cartographical aspect of the firm.

A lithograph map of the Port of London between St Katharine’s Docks and Tilbury Docks. Major roads and omnibus routes are printed in orange and bodies of water in blue, with red gridlines covering the map. London was one of the largest ports in the world at the time. A series of enclosed docks were built by private companies over the nineteenth century in response to a lack of capacity in the Pool of London, and the increasing size of cargo ships. A key at the bottom lists docks and wharves and indicates if they are used by a particular company. The Port was a vital part of the British economy: refining and processing industries grew up around goods brought in to the docks and it was the centre of British shipbuilding and repair. However, it was also a centre of political action and reform. In 1889, the dockyard workers had gone on strike for the ‘Docker’s Tanner’, a wage of 6d. an hour, protesting against the low wages and job insecurity offered by the shipping companies. It was the first in a series of industrial actions which would lead to the foundation of the Port of London Authority in 1908, four years after the publication of this map.

The inset map at the bottom shows the recently constructed Tilbury Docks in Essex, opened in 1886 by the East and West India Docks Company. The dock was built as a counter to the opening of the Royal Albert Dock by the London and St Katherine Dock Company; the two firms competed jealously for territorial advantage on the Thames. Rare; COPAC does not record any copies, nor have any been offered in the last thirty years.

Hampstead

SWINDLEHURST, J.E.

Map of the Borough of Hampstead.

Publication London, Cook, Hammond & Kell Ltd., 1925.

Description

Large folding lithographed plan, laid down on linen in 18 sections.

Dimensions

1010 by 1205mm (39.75 by 47.5 inches).

£2,000

The plan shows the Borough of Hampstead, and gives a good view of the heath including the bathing ponds; the ladies pond opened in the year the map was made, 1925.

The population of Hampstead doubled in size between 1871 and 1891. The expansion of the London railways, especially the North London Line in 1860, made it more accessible from the City, attracting both residents and visitors. As a result of this migration, the area underwent substantial redevelopment. During the 1880s Fitzjohns Avenue was connected to Hampstead High Street, creating a new transport nexus; the slums in central Hampstead were cleared; and the area gained two important hospitals - the Mount Vernon TB and the Hampstead General. In 1889 Hampstead became part of Greater London and in 1900 it became a metropolitan borough, gaining its first council and mayor. The area attracted literary and political figures, and by 1925 it was a highly fashionable suburb. Oscar Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas lived there, as did the writers H.G. Wells and Katherine Mansfield, the critic Roger Fry and the actor Sir Gerald du Maurier (father of Daphne).

Rare: No examples recorded by OCLC

WHISTLER, Reginald John “Rex”

The Financial News. Being a Map for the Merchants, Bankers, Brokers & other Ventures trading in that City.

Publication

London, The Financial News, January 22nd, 1934.

Description

Chromolithograph map.

Dimensions

420 by 580mm. (16.5 by 22.75 inches).

£2,500

Birds-eye view of the Square Mile

Birds-eye view of the City of London’s Square Mile.

To the upper left atop a cloud is Temple Bar flanked by the traditional guardians of the City, Gog and Magog, together with a cameo of Dick Whittington and his cat. To the upper right are two putti, carrying a laurel wreath and trumpet, and the coat of arms of the City; Old Father Thames reclines in the lower left corner. All the major exchanges are marked including the Stock, Baltic, Wool, Metal, Rubber, Corn, Coal, and Royal. Public buildings are also named including St Paul’s, the Bank of England, Smithfield, and the Tower of London.

The Financial News (1884-1945) was a daily British newspaper published in London. It was founded in 1884 by Harry Marks, who had begun on United States newspapers, and set up to expose fraudulent investments. Marks himself was key to the paper’s early growth, when it had a buccaneering life fighting against corruption and competing with the Financial Times, but after Marks’ death it declined. Bought by publishers Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1928 and run by Brendan Bracken, it eventually merged with its great rival in 1945.

Reginald John “Rex” Whistler (1905-1944) was a British artist, designer, and illustrator, whose career flourished in 1930s London.

The Royal Group of docks

PORT OF LONDON AUTHORITY

Plan of the Royal Group of Docks.

Publication [London], Port of London Authority, Trinity Square, E.C.3, 1964.

Description

Lithographed map, laid down on linen in 40 sections, folding into contemporary “envelope style” morocco covers with additional gilt title to upper cover with a”popper” fastening.

Dimensions 570 by 1050mm (22.5 by 41.25 inches).

£600

The Royal Docks are so-called because they are named for British royalty: the Royal Albert Dock, the Royal Victoria Dock and the King George V Dock. The Royal Albert Dock was the original site for the London School of Tropical Medicine. The docks are now closed to commercial shipping, but are often used for watersports.

The Port of London Authority was formed in 1909. It was prompted by a series of industrial actions by dock workers, including their demand for the ‘Docker’s Tanner’, a wage of 6d. an hour, in 1889. The Port was a vital part of the British economy: refining and processing industries grew up around goods brought in to the docks and it was the centre of British shipbuilding and repair. The PLA continues to supervise and manage the Port of London, the docks, and the London stretch of the River Thames. This map was issued from the former PLA headquarters in Trinity Square.