At SEA
PIRATES, SEAFARERS, & VOYAGES of DISCOVERY
Sanders of Oxford
Antique Prints & Maps
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At Sea Pirates, Seafarers, & Voyages of Discovery From Friday 26th January 2018.
As our second catalogue of the year, Sanders of Oxford is pleased to present At Sea: Pirates, Seafarers, & Voyages of Discovery. The catalogue, and its accompanying exhibition in store, brings together maps, portraits, prints, and ephemera to illustrate aspects of naval history and exploration from the 15th to the 19th centuries, from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. All works are available to purchase and will be on display in the gallery.
Sanders of Oxford. Antique Prints & Maps Salutation House 104 High Street Oxford OX1 4BW www.sandersofoxford.com - 01865 242590 - info@sandersofoxford.com Monday - Saturday 10am - 6pm. Sundays 11am - 5pm.
Contents
Pg.
Introduction: Pirates, Seafarers, and Voyages of Discovery
06
01-08: The Barbary Coast
08
09-17: The Pirate Round
20
18-32: Cities of Gold
36
33-40: The Orient
56
41-60: New Worlds & New Discoveries
66
Biographies: Authors, Engravers, & Mapmakers
90
The following catalogue comprises some 60 items, including maps, sea-charts, portraits, historical illustrations, and navigational aids, which together present a brief history of piracy, seafaring, and maritime exploration across five centuries. Encompassing the whole of the globe, from the ports of the Old World to the frozen wastes of the Poles, and from the jungles of the East Indies to the coasts of the West Indies, the catalogue explores the people, places, and events that have shaped our modern geographical, political, and social landscapes. The sea is often seen as a natural barrier, a passive divider between nations, states, and peoples, but in an age when European empires stretched across continents, the oceans of the globe were vital lifelines, considered as much a part of a country’s territory as its assets on land. It was this desire for control of the seas that led to some of history’s most significant and memorable naval voyages.
At Sea: Pirates, Seafarers, & Voyages of Discovery focusses on five main geographic areas of interest. The Mediterranean is examined through the lens of the Barbary Corsairs, the piratical Muslim nations of the North African coast that harassed the Christian empires. By comparison, the African coasts of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were the arena for some of the worst depredations of European pirates on Mughal and Arab traders and merchants during the years of the notorious Pirate Round. In the New World, the cities of gold plundered by the first wave of Spanish conquistadors attracted pirates, privateers, and Royal navies to the waters of the Caribbean, while in the Orient, East Indies merchantmen fought with Chinese pirates for the trade in silks, spices, tea, and opium. Finally, the catalogue presents a snapshot of the voyages of discovery, from Columbus to Captain Cook.
The BARBARY COAST
The Barbary Coast was the name given by European cartographers to the stretch of the North African seaboard equal to the modern day Maghreb, from the borders of Egypt in the East to the Atlantic coasts of Morocco in the West. From the 16th to the 19th century, the region of Barbaria, centred on the key ports of Tunis, Algier, and Tripoli, was synonymous with the infamous corsairs that plundered Christian ports and ships across the Mediterranean and Atlantic. The Barbary Pirates, and their brethren in Morocco, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Levant, commanded a fearsome reputation in the great trading cities of Europe. Sometimes independent, often allied with the Ottomans, and even on occasion in the pay of Christian empires like France, the Barbary Pirates disrupted the politics, trade, and maritime supremacy of the European nations for the best part of four centuries.
Their clashes with the Knights of St John on Rhodes and Malta, their sacking of Venetian ports in the Aegean, their daring attacks on the Canary Islands, or their slaving raids on towns up and down the Italian and Spanish coasts made them the subject of history books, poems, operas, and artworks. From Barbarossa, the de facto ruler of Algiers in the 16th century, to the last stand of the corsairs at Tripoli against the US Marines in 1805, the Barbary pirates were the most enduring antagonists in the history of European naval trade and exploration.
1. Barbaroussa Rex Algerii Insignis Pyrata Johann Jakob Haid Mezzotint Ioh. Iac. Haid excud. Aug. Vind [Augsburg, c.1750] Image 355 x 265 mm, Plate 355 x 397 mm An excellent impression of this rare mezzotint portrait of Hayreddin Barbarossa presented in an eighteenth century frame. The sitter is shown half-length, his head turned slightly to look over his right shoulder. The portrait is charismatic and evocative, depicting the famous Ottoman privateer as an old man, his face heavily wrinkled, and his beard and hair thick and long. He wears an ornate turban, tasselled at top and fixed with a jewelled pin. Under the title, the print is inscribed with a fitting line from Virgil’s Aeneid: Nos aut ferro Libycos populare penates / Venimus aut raptas ad littora vertere praedas. Virg. Aen. c.1. - ‘We have not come to harass Libyan hearths with the sword, nor to carry off plunder from these shores.’ Hayreddin Pasha or Khayr ad’Din Barbarus (14781546), commonly known in the west as Barbarossa, was the preeminent Ottoman admiral of the sixteenth century, and one of the most successful and famous privateers of all time. Although widely portrayed as a simple pirate by his enemies, notably the Knights of St John and the Spanish Crown, his career was long and politically ambiguous. Hayreddin was born on the Ottoman island of Lesbos to a family of mixed Greek, Turkish, and Albanian ancestry. Although his title, Barbarossa, is generally believed to have derived from his red beard, this is actually a coincidence. His older brother, Oruç, having assisted with the rescue of Muslims from newly reconquered Andalusia, received the honorific title of ‘Father,’ being hailed as Baba Oruç. This title, transliterated in Spanish and Italian to ‘Barbarossa,’ passed to Hayreddin upon the death of his older brother at the Spanish siege of Tlemcen.
Barbarossa’s maritime career began at an early age, while accompanying his brothers on voyages both mercantile and piratical in the eastern Mediterranean. Throughout his career, he captured and sacked many of the islands, forts, and coastal towns of the Mediterranean. In 1516, the brothers captured the city of Algier from the Spanish, where Oruç quickly consolidated power along the North African coast and declared himself Sultan of an independent pirate province. The position was eventually ratified by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, who incorporated the province of Algeria into the Empire, and tasked the brothers with harrying Christian shipping in the Western Mediterranean. After the death of Oruç, Hayreddin continued to act on behalf of the Ottoman empire from his base of operations in Algier, eventually being elevated to the position of Admiral of the Ottoman fleet. In 1545, Barbarossa retired, dying peacefully a year later in his palace on the coast near Constantinople. Condition: Excellent impression with full margins, some overall creasing, crease in upper right corner into image, repaired scratch in beard right. Framed in eighteenth century frame. [44517] £1,250
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2. Algier Merian, Matthäus Copper engraved [Matthaus Merian, Frankfurt, 1638] 216 x 347 mm A reduced plan of Algiers after Braun and Hogenberg’s 16th century map of the city, from Johann Ludwig Gottfried’s Neuwe Archontologia Cosmica. The city’s defensive walls are surrounded by a large moat, which connects to the port and harbour on the Mediterranean. At the time of the original Braun and Hogenberg plan, the city was starting its gradual decline from being one of the most important centres of maritime power in the sixteenth century. For the first half of the 1500s, the city had been the base for the legendary Ottoman pirate Barbarossa, whose corsairs had exerted significant pressure on the maritime activities of Christian Europe.
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Although never again as powerful as it had been under Barbarossa, the city remained an important centre for the Barbary Pirates throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, after which, weakened by the actions of the British Navy and the fledgling US Marine Corps, the city eventually fell under French rule in the 1830s. Condition: Trimmed to plate mark and laid to album page. Strong clean impression. Minor time toning to edges of album page. Faint manuscript notation ‘5.6’ in top right corner of plate. [44553] £150
3. Summus Copiarum maritimarum apud Venetos Imperator / Serenissima Venetorum Principis Uxor Pietro Bertelli Etching [Padua, 1589] Images ~110 x 82 mm, Plates ~110 x 85 mm A pair of scarce 16th century Venetian costume portraits, similar to those that feature in the borders of 17th century carte-a-figures maps, from Pietro Bertelli’s ‘Diversarum nationum habitus’ (Habits of different nations) published in Padua in 1589. The work consisted mostly of plates, illustrating people from all over Europe in their contemporary dress. The publication also included plates of American and African dress, as well as specific portraits, alongside Venetian scenery and European monuments. The first plate shows the Doge in his role as Admiral of the Venetian fleet, dressed in the regalia of his position. He wears a long loose cloak, pinned with large clasps over his right shoulder, and a broad-topped cap in place of the famous corno ducale. He is bearded and moustached, and carries a large rod in his right hand. Behind, gondoliers steer their vessels across the Venetian lagoon. The portrait is most likely intended to represent Pasquale Cicogna, Doge from 1585 until his death in 1595. His most significant achievement was the rebuilding of the old wooden Ponte de Rialto in stone, to the design of the architect Antonio da Ponte.
Cicogna’s tenure coincided with a period of further decline in Venetian maritime fortunes in the Eastern Mediterranean. The 16th century had seen the naval empire of the Republic losing territory, particularly in the Aegean, under increasing pressure from Ottoman and Barbary pirates, as well as fellow Christian navies, particularly the Spanish and Genoese. The city’s fortunes looked set to turn after the victory of the allied Holy League against the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, but humiliatingly, Venice was forced by its Spanish allies to relinquish Cyprus and parts of Dalmatia to the Ottomans. The second plate shows the wife of the ‘Most Serene Prince of Venice,’ one of the many titles for the Doge of the Republic, dressed in costume representative of her position. She wears a heavy dress with plunging neckline, and a floor length shawl of the same heavily embroidered material. A large crucifix hangs on her necklace, and she wears a rosary around her waist. Her hat appears to be a female version of the famous corno ducale, the phrygian-styled cap of the Doge. Behind her, gondoliers steer their vessels across the Venetian lagoon. Condition: Minor foxing to border at right and top of first plate, and to edges of second plate. Otherwise strong clean impressions. Framed in an antique black and gold frame. [44067] £385 13
4. Barbaresque, Capitaine de Vaisseau Georges-Jaques Gatine Copper engraved with hand colour [A Paris, Chez l’editeur, Rue Monmartre, n.183, pres le Boulevard, au Bureau du Journal des Dames, 1813] Image 190 x 140 mm, Sheet 232 x 157 mm A costume illustration of a Barbary Pirate, from Costumes orientaux inédits, dessinés d’après nature en 1796, 1797, 1798, 1802 et 1808, gravés à l’eau-forte, termines a la pointe seche, et colores, avec des explications. The book contained people from the Middle East and North America in their customary dress. The engravings were made by Gatine after drawings by Manzoni and Pecheux, and come with an explanatory introduction. In the Explication des Planches, Gatine explains that the ‘Barbaresque’ is the captain of a Turkish ship, but also that the term ‘barbaresque’ was used by the Ottomans to refer to anyone from North Africa, including Algeria, Tripoli, Tunisia, Fez, and Morocco. A little background is also given about Manzoni, who made the original drawing on which this print is based. He was a French soldier in the navy, who travelled from Toulon to Constantinople between 1796 and 1798. While working in Constantinople as a musician, and on a commission to decorate one of the theatres, he made drawings of the people around him and their dress, which were used as source material for Gatine’s publication. Condition: Excellent impression with fine hand colouring. Trimmed within plate mark. Slight ink offset to margins and title cartouche. Minor overall time toning and foxing. [44532] £150
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5. Insulæ Canariæ alias Fortunatæ dictæ Dapper, Olfert Copper engraved [Jacob van Meurs, Amsterdam, 1670] 255 x 336 mm A decorative map of the Canary Islands, with Madeira and Porto Santo also featured, from the German edition of Dapper’s Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, commonly known as the Description of Africa. The map is adorned with a compass rose, rhumb lines, sailing ships, and a decorative title cartouche, surrounded by merpeople. The Canary Islands play an important part in the history of navigation. In antiquity, the islands were often associated with myths of the Isles of the Blessed, or the location of the famous Garden of the Hesperides from the myth cycles of Hercules. The islands may have been discovered by Hanno the Navigator in the 6th century BC, but are not properly attested until the first century AD, when resettled by King Juba II of Numidia as part of his expansion of the trade in purple dye along the Atlantic coast of modern day Morocco.
By the 15th century, the islands had become a vital stopping off point in Atlantic navigation, providing a refuelling point for ships crossing to the New World, or rounding the Cape of Good Hope en route to the Spice Islands in the East Indies. This made the Canaries a popular location for pirates, particularly Ottoman privateers from the North African coast. Kemal Reis and Murat Reis both targeted the islands, in the hope of disrupting Spanish mercantile trade, and the Barbary Pirates made slave raids against the local populace during the early seventeenth century. Colonial powers were also a threat to Spanish dominance, with the most significant attacks coming from the Dutch in 1599, and from the British in 1797. It was during the latter, off the coast of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, that Admiral Nelson lost his arm. Condition: Vertical centre fold as issued. Time toning to sheet [44529] £450 15
6. Fessae, et Marocchi Regna Africae Celeberr. Ortelius, Abraham Copper engraved with hand colour describebat Abrah. Ortelius 1595. Cum Imp. Reg. & Brabantiae privilegio decennali [Antwerp, 1595] 388 x 504 mm A superb first-printing of Ortelius’ map of Morocco, from the 1595 edition of his famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The map is one of Ortelius’ own composition, though derived superficially from Gastaldi’s map of the continent of Africa. Cities, towns, and villages are extensively plotted, and picked out in red, while rivers and mountains are highlighted with hand colour. The waters of the Atlantic are populated by sailing ships, one firing its cannon towards the straits of Gibraltar, while a large sea monster roils in the waters between the Moroccan coast and the Canary Isles. In the Mediterranean, the small promontory of Penon de Velez, at times a popular haven for pirates, is here shown as an island. On the northern Atlantic coast, the town of Salé is here marked as ‘Cale.’ Salé, barely a decade after this map was printed, became one of the most infamous pirate ports of the seventeenth century, boosted largely by a massive influx of Moriscos seeking sanctuary following their expulsion from Andalusia and Valencia.
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The port became an important landing stage for the Barbary Pirates, who preyed upon the shipping routes of American and European fleets in the Atlantic, and in 1619 even established the city as a self-appointed pirate Republic. In the top left corner of the plate, a large strapwork cartouche contains an inset map of the Congo, the region most heavily exploited for the piratical and colonial slave trade. In the bottom right corner, a beautiful baroque cartouche encloses the title, its strapwork border ornamented by armed cherubs, lion’s head bosses, a pair of garlanded winged Victories, and two sphinx-like figures saddled with baskets of fruit and flowers. Condition: Central vertical fold as issued. Minor staining and time toning to bottom edge of sheet. Otherwise a strong dark impression in beautiful full colour. Latin text on verso. [44399] £750
7. Salee Olfert Dapper Copper engraved [Jacob van Meurs, Amsterdam, 1670] 216 x 293 mm A view of the infamous pirate port of Salé on the Atlantic Coast, just north of modern-day Rabat, from the German edition of Dapper’s Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, commonly known as the Description of Africa. Salé is an ancient city, having been settled by Phoenician merchants, and growing in importance during the Roman era as Sala Colonia. The city was conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century, but did not rise to prominence until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Moriscos expelled from the former Muslim provinces of Spain settled in the ruins of the old town.
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By the 1620s, the city became a hub for piracy, and was seized by the Dutch born Jan Janzsoon, who ‘turned Turk,’ renaming himself Murad Reis and declaring himself the Grand Admiral of a new Corsair Republic. Following his departure in 1627, the city continued to declare its independence, electing a council of twelve in place of their Grand Admiral and participating in numerous raids across the Atlantic and Mediterranean in coalition with the Barbary Pirates. The Republic survived until 1668, when it finally fell back under the control of the Sultan of Morocco. Condition: Vertical centre fold as issued. Time toning to sheet. Old tear repair to top right margin, not affecting plate or image. [44533] £250
8. Marine Robert Bénard Engraving with original hand colouring Benard direxit [c. 1787] Image 238 x 335 mm, Plate 243 x 353 mm, Sheet 314 x 470 mm A handsome set of hand coloured maritime flags by Robert Bénard. Plate 113 from Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres. Flags include those of Tartary, Batavia, Tripoli, and the pirate republic of Salé (Morocco). Condition: Vertical central fold, as issued. Some discolouration in margin, not affecting image. [41929] £175
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The PIRATE ROUND
In August 1695, the English pirate Henry Avery met with fellow pirates Thomas Tew, Joseph Faro, William Mayes, Richard Want, and Thomas Wake in the Mandeb Strait, the passage of water separating the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. Their target was a fleet of Mughal ships, transporting treasure and devotees from the Empire of the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb as part of the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Two years previously, Tew had pulled off a daring heist against a similar convoy, and his actions had attracted many fellow pirates eager to replicate his success. Although this second heist proved disastrous for Tew, who was allegedly disembowelled by a cannon-ball before his ship, the Amity, could even close with their Indian prey, Avery hit the piratical jackpot. Capturing the Fateh Mohammed, the flagship of Surat’s wealthiest merchant, as well as the Ganj-i-sawai, reputedly the grandest, and most heavily armoured, ship in the Muslim world, Avery overnight became the wealthiest pirate of his era.
The political repercussions of Avery’s actions were global. The Emperor Aurangzeb, whose own relatives were aboard the Ganj-i-sawai, was so enraged that the British East Indies Company was forced to pay full reparations for the pirates actions, and Avery became the subject of the first recorded international man-hunt in history. More significantly though, the actions of Tew, Avery, and their fellows paved the way for a much greater problem, the Pirate Round. The rich spoils to be had in the Indian Ocean were not limited to Mughal treasure fleets. Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish, and British ships all had mercantile interests in the region, from African slaves to East Indies spices. Pirates, seeing traditional hunting grounds in the Caribbean closed by newly zealous colonial governors and State-backed pirate-hunters, turned their attentions to more fertile and less defensible targets.
The standard route for the Pirate Round closely followed the path laid by Avery, the original Roundsman. Pirates coming from the New World would cross the Atlantic, perhaps stopping in the Cape Verde Islands to refuel, or recruit crew-members coming from Europe. From here they would sail down the coasts of West Africa, perhaps stopping in Guinea or the Gambia to buy slaves, or in the case of some socially-minded pirates, to attack the slavers themselves, adding the newly freed slaves to their own piratical numbers. After rounding the Cape, most stopped at the island of Madagascar, the lynchpin in the Pirate Round. Madagascar’s many natural bays, combined with its lack of colonial authority, provided the perfect haven for pirates, some of whom even dabbled in the creation of new pirate republics, like the legendary utopia of Libertalia. The trading post of the pirate Adam Baldridge on the Madagascan island of St Mary provided would-be Roundsmen with supplies, men, and even intelligence on the movements of their prey, which in some cases even included fellow pirates.
The final stages of the Round were the fertile waters off the coasts of the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the coasts of the Indian subcontinent. The end of the seventeenth century saw a number of other successful pirate captains trying their luck in the Indian Ocean, prompting the British Crown in particular to fund various pirate-hunters in attempts to protect the business of the East India Company. William Kidd, one of these, turned pirate himself, attacking Mughal merchants and East Indiamen before his capture and execution. In the end, it was not pirate-hunters that brought about the decline of the Pirate Round, but rather the War of the Spanish Succession. The War caused turmoil for the colonial powers in the Caribbean, and pirates quickly shifted their focus back to their traditional areas of activity.
9. Insulae Promontorii Viridis, Hispanis Islas de Cabo Verde, Belgis de Soute Eylanden Dapper, Olfert Copper engraved [Jacob van Meurs, Amsterdam, 1670] 250 x 312 mm A decorative map of the Cape Verde Islands, adorned with a large central compass rose and numerous rhumb lines, from the German edition of Dapper’s Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, commonly known as the Description of Africa. The title is featured in the upper right corner, set within a decorative cartouche, and surrounded by Poseidon and his nymphs. In the bottom left corner, a smaller cartouche containing the scale in German and Spanish miles is topped by a group of cherubs carrying cartographic tools. The Cape Verde Islands, off the Atlantic coast of West Africa, were uninhabited before discovery in the 15th century, becoming increasingly important as a refueling point for Portuguese navigation in Africa, and eventually the trans-Atlantic trade with the Caribbean and South America. Their closeness to the West African coast led to a massive increase in prosperity during the 16th and 17th centuries, mostly as a result of the booming slave trade, which targeted the African communities of Guinea and the Gambia.
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Prosperity, as in the case of many isolated island nations, attracted piracy, most notably for the Cape Verde Islands in the person of Sir Francis Drake, who raided the islands in 1585, acting under Letters of Marque issued by Elizabeth I to target Spanish and Portuguese mercantile and military activity. In the late seventeenth century, the islands were the location for Henry Avery’s debut into a life of piracy, when he attacked a trio of Barbadian ships sailing under English colours. Following Avery’s success in the Indian Ocean, the islands became an important link in the socalled ‘Pirate Round,’ connecting the Caribbean and the African continent. Condition: Vertical centre fold as issued. Time toning to sheet. [44531] £220
10. The Taking the Marquese the Antin & Louis Erasme two rich prices from the South Seas by the Prince Frederick & Duke Privateers, with a view of the third ship which escaped, 10th July 1745 Lat: 43° 50°. Simon Francois Ravenet after Charles Brooking Copper engraving Publish’d according to Act of Parliament 1751 & Sold by J. Boydell Engraver at the Globe near Durham Yard in the Strand Image 285 x 447 mm, Plate 347 x 477 mm, Sheet 440 x 540 mm An engraving after the oil painting The Capture of the “Marquis d’Antin” and the “Louis Erasme” by Charles Brooking c. 1745, in the collection of Yale Centre for British Art. In 1745 London merchants sent out three privateers, including the Prince Frederick and the Duke under the command of Captains James Talbot and John Morecock.
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Their journey was short, but very bountiful. Almost immediately after setting sail from Cowes to the Azores and Newfoundland, they were chased by the Marquis d’Antin, the Louis Erasme and the Notre Dame de Deliverance, three French privateers, commanded by Magon Serpere, Pedro Lavigne Quenell and Pedro Litant respectively. Shots were fired first from the Duke to the chasers, and after a couple of hours of fighting, the Marquis and Louis Erasme were captured and demasted, while the crew of the Notre Dame escaped. As the French ships had just returned from Lima, they were fully loaded with treasure, cacao, and other tradable goods. Condition: Good impression with wide margins. Light time toning. Slight damage to the surface of the sheet at upper left. [44540] £600
11. The Boscawen and Sheerness Privateers Engaging a Fleet of French Ships from Martinico, five of which were taken, one sunk, & two escaped, 1745. John Boydell after Charles Brooking Copper engraving Publish’d according to Act of Parliament 1751, & Sold by J. Boydell Engraver, at the Globe near Durham Yard in the Strand Image 290 x 452 mm, Plate 339 x 475 mm, Sheet 405 x 545 mm An engraving after the oil painting “Commodore Walker’s action: the Privateer ‘Boscawen’ engaging a fleet of French ships, 23 May 1745” by Charles Brooking, in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. English privateer George Walker (c. 1700-1777) came across eight French merchant ships at sea near Cape Finisterre.
The merchants were returning home from Martinique, and apart from sugar, coffee, cacao, gold dust, and more tradable goods, they carried their letters of marque. Five of the eight ships were captured by Walker, who commanded the Boscawen and Furnell, the captain of Sheerness. One ship was sunk and two others were able to escape the attack. Condition: Good impression with wide margins. Light time toning. Slight damage to the surface of the sheet at upper right. [44541] £600
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12. Guineae Nova Descriptio Hondius, Jodocus Copper engraved with hand colour [Tot Amsterdam, Ghedruckt by Iudocum Hondium, woonende inde Calver-Straet, inden Wackeren Hont. Anno 1614. Met Privilegie.] 228 x 320 mm A superb early seventeenth century map of West Africa, with particular reference to Dutch and Portuguese exploration in the region, from the ‘Historische beschrijvinghe der seer wijt beroemde coop-stadt Amsterdam’ by Pontanus. The map shows the Gulf of Guinea, from the Gambia to the coasts of modern day Cameroon and Gabon. Principal settlements are depicted pictorially and marked in red, while the borders of the various regions, including Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Benin, are outlined in hand colour.
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Two Dutch sailing vessels, as well as a large one-man canoe, sail in the Gulf, and two sea monsters flank the island of Sao Tome. In the bottom left corner, a large inset map depicts Sao Tome in detail, with the Citadel marked in red. To the right of the inset map, a pair of decorative strapwork cartouches enclose the title and a scale in Spanish and German miles. Condition: Vertical and horizontal folds as issued. Blank on verso. [42333] £500
13. Cabo de Bone Esperanse John Ogilby after Olfert Dapper Copper engraving [London, 1670] 236 x 329 mm A view of the Cape of Good Hope, from the English translation of Dapper’s Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, commonly known as the Description of Africa. The view shows Table Mountain and Lion’s Head in Cape Town, South Africa, with various ships depicted on the sea. A numbered key, both in Dutch and English, is featured in the upper left corner. In the upper right, an inset plan of the fortress of Cape Town is depicted on a hanging banner. The Cape of Good Hope is one of the most significant and famous navigational points in the history of seafaring. Although traditionally believed to be the southernmost point of the continent of Africa, and thus the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the cape is actually on the southern Atlantic coast of modern-day South Africa. The discovery and navigation of the Cape is usually attested to the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias, who christened it the ‘Cape of Storms’ on the 12th of March 1488.
In fact, the Cape may have been known apocryphally in the classical era, in connection with the Ptolemaic navigator Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who, after being blown off course down the eastern coast of Africa, met the wreck of a ship from Gades coming North. His belief that the ship had completed a circumnavigation of the continent led to his own attempt, which likely resulted in his death. Regardless of its original discoverer, following Dias, the Cape became a vital supply point for ships travelling to the East Indies, and by the 17th century, was a favourite refuelling point for the ‘Pirate Round.’ Condition: Vertical centre fold as issued. Repaired tear to bottom centre of sheet, encroaching into image. A few faint areas of foxing and discolouration to margins. [41425] £350 29
14. Insula S. Laurentii, vulgo Madagascar Dapper, Olfert Copper engraved [Jacob van Meurs, Amsterdam, 1670] 282 x 365 mm A decorative map of the island of Madagascar, and the coastline of Mozambique, adorned with two compass roses, and four sailing ships, from the German edition of Dapper’s Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, commonly known as the Description of Africa. The title is featured in the lower left corner, set within a decorative cartouche, and surrounded by Poseidon and his nymphs.
The island’s strategic location off the coast of Africa, combined with the lucrative mercantile shipping channels to India and the Spice Islands, made it a haven for piracy, particularly at the end of the seventeenth century and contemporary with this map, when it became a critical refueling point on the so-called ‘Pirate Round’ for captains such as Thomas Tew, Henry Avery, William Kidd, and Adam Baldridge.
Madagascar’s history is one of constant contact with and settlement by seafaring peoples. The original settlers of the island likely came from Borneo, and were followed by Arab merchants from the seventh century AD onwards. A group of Bantu speakers from East Africa arrived around 1000 AD, and sporadic European contact began following the Portuguese expedition of Diogo Dias in 1500. Dias, the brother of the famous Bartolomeu Dias, served as a clerk for Vasco de Gama, and also discovered the Cape Verde Islands.
The latter, having fled Jamaica wanted for murder, established a settlement on Ile Sainte-Marie to resupply pirates preying upon the lucrative Hajj-pilgrimage treasure ships of Arab and Mughal nobles. The success of Avery in particular encouraged a rapid proliferation in piratical activity off the coasts of Madagascar, giving rise to legends of a pirate utopia called Libertalia.
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Condition: Vertical centre fold as issued. Time toning to sheet. Minor foxing to plate. Trimmed to plate on sides, as issued. [44530] £300
15. I.S. Laurentij sive Madagascar Bertius, Petrus Copper engraved with hand colour [Cornelis Claesz. Amsterdam, c.1616] 92 x 128 mm A miniature map of Madagascar, originally called St Lawrence by the Portuguese, from a French edition of Petrus Bertius’ Tabularum geographicarum contractarum. The island is shown oriented with east to top, the tropic of Capricorn running vertically along the right hand side of the plate. In the top right, the title is enclosed in a decorative strap-work cartouche. A scale in miles is included in the bottom left corner. Beautiful detailing with the inclusion of notable towns and mountains, all of which are embellished in hand colour. Condition: Small chip to top margin not affecting plate or map. Minor staining to edges of sheet from old mount, not affecting plate or map. French letterpress on verso. [42977] £120
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16. India Proper. or the Empire of the Great Mogul Moll, Herman Copper engraved [London, c. 1740] 257 x 177 mm A detailed map of India with parts of Tartary, Persia and the Maldives, featuring the major cities, rivers and mountains. From Thomas Salmon’s Modern History, or the present state of all nations c. 1740. Herman Moll first published his map of India c. 1715, which was later used in his Atlas Minor, published by Thomas and John Bowles c. 1732-1736 in London, and published again in Thomas Osbourne’s ‘A collection of voyages and travels’ in 1745.
The boundaries between pirate and privateer were hazy, and it is unsurprising that with so many wealthy and often poorly protected vessels plying their trade in the region, Indian ships increasingly became a favourite target for English and French pirates. Following Thomas Tew and Henry Avery in particular, pirates flocked to the Indian Ocean, hoping to replicate the successes of their colleagues against the Mughal treasure fleets on the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
This map very closely resembles that design, but differences are to be found in the shorter title, place names such as “Hindostan” instead of “Indostan”, decorative elements and the breaking with the conventional border margin to the left.
Avery’s capture of the Fateh Mohammed, and his crew’s monstrous treatment of their captives, so greatly incensed the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb that he threatened the expulsion of the British East India Company from Bombay, and was only calmed when the Company paid full reparations for his loss, and initiated an international, though ultimately unsuccessful, manhunt to track down Avery and his crew.
Indian ports, fleets, and merchants were popular targets for piracy. India, a land rich in high-value spices, textiles, and minerals, had been of great interest to European powers since the classical era, and its merchants had traded across the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, and the Silk Roads for millennia. In the sixteenth century, the Indian trade was largely monopolised, first by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch. This monopoly was openly challenged by other European nations, who increasingly utilized privateers to harass legitimate mercantile activity in the Indian Ocean.
Condition: Excellent, clear impression. Full margins. [43104] £200
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17. Erythraei sive Rubri Maris Periplus, olim ab Arriano Descriptus, nunc vero ab Abrah. Ortelio ex eodem Delineatus Ortelius, Abraham Copper engraved with hand colour Cum Imp. Reg. et Cancellariae Brabantiae privilegio decennali 1597 [1624 Parergon edition] 360 x 462 mm A fascinating map of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, charting the text of the ancient Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, originally printed for the 1624 Parergon (Supplement) of Ortelius’ famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The map stretches from the Eastern coast of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, across Persia and the India Subcontinent, to the putative ‘Aurea Regio,’ or Kingdom of Gold in the Far East. Coasts and borders are outlined in beautiful hand colour, and cities, towns, and trade ports are picked out in red. The Greek text upon which the map is based was most likely composed in the first century AD by a GrecoEgyptian author, either based in Alexandria or the trading city of Berenice on the Red Sea Coast. The work, in sixty-six chapters, records a sailing voyage along the coasts of the Red Sea and India Ocean, beginning along the Egyptian and Arabian coasts, working down the African coast past Somalia to the trading port of Rhapta, often identified with a site just north of Dar-esSalaam. From here, the author discusses the ports of the Arabian Peninsula, the Indo-Roman trading emporium of Barygaza, the cities and rulers of southern India, and finally the legacy of Alexander in the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms of Central Asia. The text also features what is considered to be one of the earliest western discussions of China, describing traders from a far off city called Thina.
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Some of the most interesting sites from the text here recorded are the trading port of Opone, just south of the horn of Africa and a site for trade for merchants from as far east as Indonesia and Malaysia, the city of Cana in Arabia, which is described as the key centre of trade in frankincense, and the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent, home to ‘Piratae’ who prey upon passing traders and attest to a very long history of piracy in the Indian Ocean. The island of Menuthesias, usually equated with Zanzibar, is shown here by Ortelius as Madagascar. The putative ‘Land of Gold’ to the very east of the map is here depicted in a manner reminiscent of the Indian Meridionalis or Dragons Tail so common on early sixteenth century maps of the Far East. The question of authorship of the Periplus, an ongoing discussion to this day, was also evidently of interest to Ortelius. Despite attributing the work to Arrian, author of a similar periplus of the Euxine (Black Sea), a large explanatory note east of the Ganges points out a number of problems with this attestation. Arrian’s authorship of the Periplus has been largely rejected by scholars, and it is likely that the original attestation only came about through marginalia in a 10th century manuscript of the text, now in the collections of the University of Heidelberg. Condition: Clean impression with full margins. Central vertical fold as issued. Minor foxing to margins, not affecting image. Latin text on verso. [44512] £1,250
CITIES of GOLD
On the second of January, 1492, Muhammad XII, the ruler of Grenada, surrendered his beloved city to Ferdinand II of Aragon and his wife and queen Isabella I of Castile. Grenada was the last stronghold of nearly eight centuries of Muslim life in Southern Spain, and with its fall, the Reconquista was complete. In the course of that year, the earthly authority of the Catholic Monarchs would extend from their newly unified Spanish peninsula, to an Empire that crossed oceans, encompassing hitherto unknown lands in a New World. Columbus’ landing on the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola in his search for a western route to the East Indies marked the start of centuries of conflict, conquest, and exploitation of the New World. At the heart of all of it was gold, shipped back to Spain on treasure fleets, each ship bringing more riches than the gross yearly wealth of the Spanish peninsula itself. Cortes destroyed the Aztec ruler Moctezuma, Pizarro the Incan emperor Atahualpa. The cities of gold they encountered gave rise to legends of Manoa, Ophir, and El Dorado. In Florida, Ponce de Leon was killed while attempting to set up a colony, though later authors believed he had found the fabled Fountain of Youth. With stories of this kind spreading throughout Europe, Spain’s primacy in the West Indies was quickly challenged. By the end of the sixteenth century, the majority of Europe’s empires boasted new world colonies, though lawlessness and opportunity could be found in equal measure.
Acts of piracy were usually overlooked, and often encouraged, particularly by the English and French, who increasingly provided ‘Letters of Marque’ to privateers harassing their Spanish competitors. Spain’s fortunes declined in the seventeenth century, as the maintenance of a vast Habsburg Empire, the erosion of colonial holdings through successive wars, and administrative corruption all took their toll. The power vacuum created in the breakdown of colonial power gave rise to the Golden Age of piracy. Port Royal, in Jamaica, was considered the ‘Sodom of the New World.’ The French port of Petit-Goave and the island of Tortuga off the coast of Hispaniola were likewise popular dens of piratical iniquity. By the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, thousands of mercenaries and privateers had gathered in the Caribbean. Nassau in the Bahamas became a veritable pirate Republic, the perfect jumping-off point for attacks on passing merchant fleets or for scavenging the wrecks of Spanish treasure galleons on the reefs of the Florida Keys. More adventurous pirates set up communities off the coasts of South America, or used their wealth to attempt a legitimate life in the American colonies. Others sought clemency by handing over their former running mates, or turned pirate-hunters for newly reinstated colonial governments, and by the late 1720s, the Golden Age had run its course.
18. Temistitan Porro, Girolamo after Porcacchi, Tommaso Copper engraved [Venice, c.1576] 104 x 140 mm A rare and historically significant map of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, in the centre of Lake Texcoco, engraved by Girolamo Porro for Tommaso Porcacchi’s L’isole più famose del mondo. Tenochtitlan was founded on an island in the middle of the lake in 1325, rising through conquest and commercial enterprise to become the capital of a vast Mexican empire during the 15th century. In 1521, the city fell to the Spanish, who refounded the old capital as Mexico City. At the time of the Spanish conquest, Tenochtitlan was estimated to hold a population of over 200,000. By contrast, the city of Seville, the most populous Spanish city at the time, was less than half the size. With its aqueducts, terraced palaces, and gardens, the conquistadors considered the city a wonder, praising it as the ‘Venice of the New World.’ 38
The first woodcut plans of the city began appearing in Europe during the 1520s, and by the end of the sixteenth century was an essential inclusion in any illustrated book relating to the New World. Porro’s copper engraved map of the city was first included as part of a suite of 15 New World maps in the 1576 second edition of Porcacchi’s L’isole. This particular impression of Porro’s map of Tenochtitlan was possibly separately printed, owing to the fact that it lacks the usual Porcacchi text above and below the plate, and on the verso. In addition, the old binder’s fold to the centre left of the sheet is consistent with it having been bound into a composite atlas or extra illustrated book. A number of composite atlases of Porro’s plates with blank backs are known, likely issued by the Galignani brothers in Venice during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Condition: Vertical binder’s fold to centre left of plate, as issued. Clean impression with full margins. Vertical crease and binding holes to right margin not affecting plate or map. [42935] £300
19. Cuscho Citta Principale della Provincia del Peru Sebastian Münster after Giovanni Battista Ramusio Woodcut with hand colour [c.1560] Image 272 x 375 mm, Sheet 296 x 405 mm An unusual printing of Munster’s view of Cusco, capital of Peru and the Inca empire, from the Cosmographia. The woodcut is a very close copy of Ramusio’s 1556 view of the city, first published in his Raccolta di Navigationi et Viaggi. The major difference between the two blocks can be seen in the title at top. Where the original Ramusio title is emblazoned on an oriflamme, the Munster ribbon ends in a simple curl. This copy features the Munster ribbon, but the pagination of the Ramusio, and lacks text on the verso, unlike other Munster examples. The city of Cusco was initially founded at some point during the 10th or 11th centuries AD by the local Killke people, though by the 13th century, they had been subsumed by the growing Inca Empire. Under the Inca, the city became the Imperial capital for almost three hundred years. The centre of Inca government, society, and trade, Cusco was one of the most opulent cities in the world at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Pizarro’s men arrived in 1533, quickly stripping the buildings of their gold facades, and dismantling Inca temples and sacred spaces. Despite the despoliation, the Spaniards were overcome by the craftsmanship of the Inca, marveling that their stonework in particular surpassed any European example of the day. In a matter of years, the city was transformed by the conquerors, blending local art and architecture with colonial Spanish churches, casas, and public monuments. The first printed image of Cusco appeared in Pedro Cieza de Leon’s Cronica del Peru in 1553, beginning a sixteenth century fascination with the city and its Aztec cousin, Tenochtitlan. Condition: Pressed central vertical fold, as issued. Small professional repairs to central fold. Minor surface dirt to margins, not affecting image. Blank on verso. [44534] £450
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20. Mexico, Regia et Celebris Hispaniae Novae Civitas / Cusco Regni Peru In Novo Orbe Caput Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg Copper engraved with hand colour Antwerp, c. 1600 269 x 471 mm A pair of views of the pre-Columbian cities of Mexico and Peru, from part one of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum, and the only views of the New World to be illustrated in the series. Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and Cusco are shown at the time of their conquest by the Spanish. Aztec and Inca ďŹ gures are shown in the foregrounds of the views, including Atahualpha, the Inca king, being held aloft on a covered throne in the view of Cusco. [44535] ÂŁ1,500
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21. [The Meeting of Cortes and Montezuma in 1519] Jacobus Schynvoet Copper engraving and etching London : printed for the author: and sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane ; and the booksellers in town and country, MDCCXXXVI. [1736] Image 267 x 342 mm, Sheet 284 x 346 mm A plate illustrating the meeting of Cortes and Montezuma, from Thomas Salmon’s Modern history : or, the present state of all nations, with one page of accompanying text. The scene depicted shows the peaceful meeting between Hernando Cortes, leader of a small force of Spanish conquistadores, with the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II, commonly known as Montezuma, in the great plaza of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. Cortes’ expedition landed on the Yucatan peninsula in 1518, and, through alliances with local clan groups hostile to Moctezuma, made their way towards the Aztec capital, requesting an audience with the ruler himself. Although their requests were initially refused, the Spaniards rapid progress alarmed Moctezuma, and following a massacre of unarmed Aztec nobles at Cholula in October 1519, Moctezuma agreed to a meet Cortes and his men on the 8th of November.
Moctezuma’s attempts to ransom his empire with gold served only to excite Spanish avarice, and Cortes took the ruler prisoner, effectively using him as a puppet to turn rule of the vast Aztec Empire in favour of the Spanish. Another massacre, perpetrated in March 1520 by one of Cortes’ men, Pedro de Alvarado, spurred the populace of Tenochtitlan into revolt, and Moctezuma, unable to placate his people, was put to death. Although Cortes and the Spaniards were forced to abandon the city, and most of the plunder they had taken, they returned in force at the beginning of 1521, sacked the city, captured Cuauhtemoc the new ruler, and claimed Mexico for the Spanish Crown. Condition: Trimmed to image on left, bottom and a third of the right; horizontal and vertical creases, all as issued. [40168] £100
22. The seizure of Atahualpa at Cajamarca Pierre Duflos after Jean-Michel Moreau Copper engraving [Paris, c. 1780] Image 182 x 135 mm, Sheet 205 x 146 mm The seizure of the Inca ruler Atahualpa by Francisco Pizarro and the the Spanish at the Battle of Cajamarca, from the Abbé Raynal’s ‘Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens des Européens dans les deux Indes’, a study of colonialism heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, banned in his native France in 1779. The Battle of Cajamarca (16th November 1532) was the first military action of the Spanish conquest of Peru. Pizarro and his men, greatly outnumbered by the armies of the Inca ruler Atahualpa, had been lured into the heartland of the Inca Empire through promises of friendship. Realising that their success and personal safety relied only upon maintaining Inca belief in their semi-divinity, Pizarro planned a reckless and coldblooded ambush in the Incan city of Cajamarca. Having invited the Emperor to meet with him without an armed escort, Pizarro and his men opened fire on the Emperor’s unarmed retinue in the great plaza of the city. The Spanish guns, cannons, and cavalry terrified the Inca, and first-hand accounts, both Incan and Spanish, describe a massacre of up to 2000 of Atahualpa’s attendants and councillors. The Emperor himself, on a palanquin at the centre of the retinue, was captured and used as leverage to control the vast Incan armies outside the city walls. The unfortunate Atahualpa, having outlived his usefulness, was executed less than a year later. ‘Tom. VIII Pag. 271’ inscribed above image. [36504] £250
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23. Athabaliba ultimus Rex Peruanorum John Ogilby Copper engraving [London. 1671] Image 279 x 167 mm, Plate 287 x 176 mm, Sheet 307 x 195 mm A striking seventeenth century portrait of Atahualpa (c.1502-33), the last King of the Incas, from John Ogilby’s ‘America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World’. Atahualpa is depicted wearing a, bejewelled, feathered head-dress and clasps a spear in his left hand. The portrait is surrounded by an ornately decorated border featuring arrows, cuffs and chains, and topped with a catlike headpiece. Atahualpa (c.1502-1533), also known as Athabaliba or Atawallpa, ruled the northern part of the Incan empire after his father’s death in 1527. The southern part of Huayna Capac’s former empire was under the rule of his other son, Huascar. War broke out between the two half-brothers as both wanted control over the entire empire, and Athahualpa would eventually execute Huascar, as well as his family and councillors in 1532. The new Emperor celebrated his victory by enjoying the hot springs in Cajamarca, where he met, and was captured, by the Spanish under Pizarro, who used him as a puppet to dismantle the Inca state and exert Spanish control over the former Empire. The Incas attempted to secure their former ruler’s safety by presenting the Spanish with the largest ransom in history, amassing over 24 tons of gold, but Atahualpa was not released. Instead he was executed less than a year after his capture, but not before he converted to Christianity, in a last attempt to not be burned at the stake. Condition: Excellent impression. Light toning to sheet. [44548] £150
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24. Francisco Pisarro John Ogilby Copper engraving [London. 1671] Image 290 x 177 mm, Plate 296 x 180 mm, Sheet 350 x 215 mm A fine seventeenth century portrait of the famous explorer and conquistador Francisco Pizarro (c.1471 - 1541), from John Ogilby’s ‘America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World’. Pizarro is depicted in a suit of armour with sword and baton, with a battle scene in the background. The portrait is surrounded by an ornately decorated border of columns and wreathes. Francisco Pizarro (1475-1541) was a Spanish navigator who set out in 1523 to explore the west coast of Southern America and eventually establish a Spanish settlement there. He successfully conquered Peru by ambushing the last Inca Emperor during The Battle of Cajamarca (16th November 1532), and founded Lima as the new capital. Tensions built when later explorers travelled to Peru, eventually leading to Pizarro being murdered by an opposing faction in 1541. Condition: Excellent impression. Light toning to sheet. Light creasing to bottom left corner of sheet. [44550] £120
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25. Jean Ponze de Leon na Florida Pieter van der Aa after Theodorus de Bry Copper engraving [Leyden, 1706-1727] Image 130 x 180 mm, Plate 137 x 184 mm, Sheet 366 x 230 mm A scene from the expedition of Juan Ponce de León, from Pieter van der Aa’s De aanmerkenswaardigste en alomberoemde zee- en landreizen der Portugeezen, Spanjaarden, Engelsen, en allerhande natie ën. The scene depicts a massacre of Spanish soldiers and Jesuit priests by native West Indian warriors. The West Indians, armed with clubs and bows and arrows, rush from a small village in a forest towards the coast, driving before them a small group of fleeing Spaniards, who try to make it back to the safety of their ships. A number of Spanish soldiers lie dying on the shoreline, while two captive Jesuits are bludgeoned to death in the foreground. The scene probably depicts the unsuccessful attempt at colonisation led by Ponce de León to southwest Florida in 1521. The expedition met with fierce opposition from the native Calusa people, who succeeded in repelling the Spanish colonists and mortally wounding Ponce de León himself, who was shot with an arrow likely poisoned with manchineel sap.
The colonists abandoned their mission and retreated to Havana, where Ponce de Leon succumbed to his injuries. The De aanmerkenswaardigste... was a colossal Dutch account of the various voyages of discovery in the West and East Indies undertaken by all of the European nations, excepting the Dutch. Van der Aa, ever the consummate salesman, astutely attributed the work to Gottfried, whose Chronicle he had published a few years earlier. The majority of the text for the multi-volume work was taken from pre-existing Dutch translations of the accounts of famous voyages, most notably de la Casas’ description of the voyages of Columbus. Condition: Clean, dark impression. Text below and to verso. Time toning to sheet. [42044] £75 45
26. Culiacanae, Americae Regionis, Descriptio / Hispaniolae, Cubae, Aliarumque Insularum Circumiacientium, Delineatio Ortelius, Abraham Copper engraved Cum Imp. et Regio privilegio decennali 1579 [Antwerp, 1598] 358 x 496 mm A pair of late sixteenth century maps of the Spanish Americas on a single sheet, from the 1598 French edition of Ortelius’ famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. At top is a map of the territory of Culiacana, roughly equal with modern day Sinaloa State. The many preColumbian villages and settlements are plotted, along with the colonial towns of Culiacan and Villa San Michaelis (San Miguel de Culiacán), both shown as miniature towns, and with the cathedral of San Miguel marked with a crucifix. Rivers and mountain ranges are depicted, as is a large palm grove north of Culiacan. In the top right, a strapwork cartouche encloses the title, while a larger and more ornate example in the Gulf of California notes that the anonymous cartographer upon which the map is based used Toledo as his prime meridian, rather than the usual Fortunate Isles, by which Ortelius means the Azores. Historically, the map is an interesting one less for its cartography, than for its connection to the early history of European exploration of California and the West Coast of Mexico and the United States. Culiacan was the furthest point north on the Mexican mainland reached by Hernando Cortes in his search for the famous Seven Cities of Gold. Across the Gulf, in the southern part of Baja California, he described an ideal harbour, usually thought to be the harbour of La Paz. Stories of the Seven Cities of Gold circulated throughout the sixteenth century, encouraging a number of other explorers after Cortes. Francisco de Ulloa, privately funded by Cortes, set out in 1539 from Acapulco and circumnavigated the coasts of the Gulf of California, sailing north along the western coast of Baja as far as Isla Natividad.
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The following year, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado set out to find the cities by an overland route, following the coast of the Gulf of California as far as San Miguel before turning inland, eventually travelling as far north as Kansas, though finding nothing but adobe huts in place of the ‘streets paved with gold’ that the legends had promised. At the bottom of the plate is a beautiful and detailed map of the Caribbean, centred on the islands of Cuba and ‘Aity, sive Spaniola’ (Haiti, or Hispaniola). The various colonial settlements on the islands are marked with icons relative to their size and importance, while two ships sail the hatchured oceans. To the extreme left, the tip of the Yucatan peninsula and the island of Cozumel breaks the border, while the southernmost reaches of Florida and the Florida Keys can be seen at top. In the centre of the Bahamas islands, a treacherous stretch of water and reefs is labelled as ‘Great Carybdis,’ no doubt inspired by the infamous whirlpools of Greek mythology, while another patch of reef north of Hispaniola is represented as Charybdis’ mythic partner, the monster Scylla. The rest of the Antilles are depicted in impressive detail, stretching from St Juan (Puerto Rico) to Baruados (Barbados), which, along with St Lucia, is squeezed into the border at bottom right. Ortelius’ explanatory notes on the verso make it clear why Cuba was such an attractive prospect for the Spanish colonists, with the island’s abundance of gold, precious stones, and exotic textile dyes matched by lush forests, sweet water, and even a natural supply of bitumen for tarring ships. Condition: Central vertical fold as issued. Tear repair to top of central fold, not affecting image or plate. Manuscript number ‘8’ in top right corner. [44649] £800
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27. [Capture of the Spanish Fleet at Matanzas Bay, Cuba] Herman Padtbrugge Etching [Amsterdam, published by Jan ter Hoorn and Jan Bouman Hoorn, 1676] Image 160 x 125 mm A scene from the life of Dutch admiral and privateer, Pieter Pietersz Heyn, most likely depicting the bountiful capture of Spanish ships in Mantanzas Bay near Cuba in 1628, from Lambert van den Bosch’s “Leeven en Daaden der Doorluchtigste Zee-helden” (Heroes of the Sea, their lives and deeds), first published in 1676. Pieter Pietersz Heyn (Hein) (1577-1629) was a Dutch admiral and privateer, who was appointed a director of the Dutch West Indies Company in 1621. Shortly thereafter he captured over twenty Portuguese ships in St. Salvador in Brazil, followed by the overtaking of part of the Spanish fleet in Matanzas bay by Cuba.
This last victory in 1628 was very profitable for the Dutch Republic, as the Spanish fleet was at the moment of capture carrying a year’s worth of gold and silver mined in their colonies in South America. Heyn was then given the command of the entire Dutch fleet and send out to defeat the Dunkirk pirates, who were paid by the Spanish King Philip IV to terrorise the North Sea. Heyn and his men succeeded in subduing the pirates in 1629, but the captain fell during the final battle. Condition: Excellent impression, with good margins. Framed in an antique black and gold frame. [44537] £300
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28. Hispaniola Bertius, Petrus Copper engraved with hand colour [Amsterdam, c.1616] 96 x 132 mm A miniature map of Hispaniola, modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic, as well as the eastern parts of Cuba, from a Latin edition of Petrus Bertius’ Tabularum geographicarum contractarum. The map’s borders and coasts are outlined in hand colour, and principal cities and settlements are picked out in red. In the bottom right corner, the title and a scale in German miles is enclosed in a ribbon cartouche. In the bottom left corner of the plate, two sailing vessels engage in a cannon fight, a reminder of the region’s turbulent maritime history and piratical activity. The ships are flanked by a pair of sea monsters. Columbus landed on the island during his first voyage, naming the island La Isla Espanola and establishing a settlement on the northern coast, marked here as Port Natividad.
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Across the water from this landing point, the notorious pirate island of Tortuga, ‘Turtle Island’, can be seen. Tortuga flourished as a piratical gathering point during the seventeenth century, with the famous ‘Brethren of the Coast’ profiting from the continued territorial disputes of Spain, France, and Britain over the islands and their trade routes. Condition: Excellent impression. Latin title above and Latin text on verso. [44299] £275
29. Carte des Havres de Kingstown et de Port Royal Bellin, Jacques Nicolas Copper engraved with hand colour [Paris, Jacques Nicolas Bellin, 1764] 194 x 296 mm A decorative French map of the harbour at Kingston, the fortress at Port Royal, and the different settlements in southern Jamaica, with the depths shown by soundings, from Bellin’s Le Petit Atlas Maritime. Port Royal was initially founded by the Spanish, but was captured along with the rest of the island of Jamaica by the British in 1655. The city became a notorious haven for privateers and pirates, who were encouraged to use the port as a staging point for attacks on the Spanish treasure fleets. The city acquired a reputation for debauchery and violence. The famous Captain Morgan used Port Royal as a base for his campaigns against Panama, Portobello, and Maracaibo, and by the 1660s the city had grown to be regarded as the ‘Sodom of the New World.’
Initially, because of a lack of adequate military support from the Crown, the Governors of Jamaica were required to turn to pirates for security against Spanish reprisals, but after an earthquake destroyed much of the old town in 1692, much of the city’s wealth passed to nearby Kingston, and piracy was actively legislated against. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Port Royal became the site for a number of high-profile pirate executions, most notably those of Calico Jack Rackham and Charles Vane. Condition: Strong impression with fine hand colouring and full margins. Pressed vertical centre fold as issued. Slight overall time toning. [44551] £150
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30. Insulæ Americanæ In Oceano Septentrionali. cum Terris adiacentibus. Blaeu, Willem Janszoon Copper engraved with hand colour [Amsterdam, 1647] 380 x 525 mm A decorative map of the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, heavily based on Hessel Gerritsz’ 1631 map of the same region, from Blaeu’s ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’. The map illustrates the Caribbean, Florida, the southeast coast of the United States, Central America, and the north coast of South America.
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The title is featured in the upper left corner within a cartouche supported by two putti, and surrounded by various animals native to the Americas, including a turtle and an iguana. The map is criss-crossed with rhumb lines, radiating from a set of three compass roses, and numerous sailing ships occupy the Caribbean Sea. Condition: Vertical centre fold as issued. Good impression, although a few areas of light discolouration and foxing. German text on verso. [41259] £1,200
31. Archipelagi Americani Delineatio Geographica Scherer, Heinrich Copper engraved [Munich, c.1703] 227 x 338 mm A finely engraved early eighteenth century map of the Caribbean, from Heinrich Scherer’s Atlas Novus. The map stretches from the southernmost tip of Florida at top to northern South America at bottom, and from the Yucatan in the West to the Leeward and Windward Isles in the East. Each island is meticulously labelled with the names of principal ports, settlements, cities, rivers, and other key features. The seas are filled with sailing vessels, reefs, and sea monsters, and the map is further embellished by a number of decorative cartouches, one of which provides an alphanumeric key to the map, showing the colonial territories of the Spanish, French, British, Dutch, and Caribes.
In the top right corner, an extensive vignette shows European merchants, explorers, and settlers interacting with the various native inhabitants of the Caribbean, and loading goods onto sailing ships belonging to Spain, France, and Britain. Condition: Excellent dark, clean impression with full margins. Central vertical fold as issued. [43103] £600
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32. A Map of the West-Indies &c. Mexico or New Spain. Also ye Trade Winds, and ye several Tracts made by ye Galeons and Flota from Place to Place Moll, Herman Copper engraved By H. Moll Geographer [Thomas & John Bowles, London, c. 1732] 198 x 265 mm A very characterful map of the Caribbean Sea, originally designed by Moll for his Atlas Minor, though included in a number of other contemporary atlases and accounts of voyages, including Salmon’s Modern History, Osborne’s A Collection of Voyages and Travels, and Simpson’s Agreeable Historian. The addition of a Volume and Page number to the map’s top left corner would suggest that this example came from one of the latter. The map is a fascinating snapshot of Caribbean political and mercantile activity during the early eighteenth century. This coincided with a rapid upsurge in piracy that came about as the result of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. 54
This second wave of Caribbean piracy produced some of the most infamous figures in maritime history, including Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Black Bart Roberts, and the ‘lady pirates,’ Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Woodes Rogers, the man sent by the British Crown to eradicate the pirates, was a close friend and advisor of Herman Moll. The map also charts the transits of various Spanish treasure galleons, linking the crucial ports of Havana, Vera Cruz, Acapulco, and Cartagena to the heart of Spanish mercantile administration, the Casa de Contratacion in Seville. Condition: Pressed central vertical fold, as issued. Minor foxing to left hand margin and under the title ‘New France.’ Otherwise a strong, clean impression. [44536] £500
The ORIENT
The history of trade with the Far East usually conjures up visions of the Silk Road, Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, Xanadu and Samarkand, opium and sandalwood, gunpowder and fireworks, but the maritime history of European contact with the Orient is just as significant, tumultuous, and interesting. Naval merchants from India, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia have been trading their goods with the West for almost three millennia, but it was not until the voyages of Portuguese and Dutch navigators in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries that Europeans themselves began to travel by sea to the Far East. The various East Indies companies established by the colonial powers are testament to the importance placed on maritime trade with the Far East. Foremost amongst these of course were the Dutch, whose agents, working on behalf of the VOC, travelled throughout South East Asia, establishing trading posts to bring back to Amsterdam a constant supply of merchant ships groaning with cinnamon, cloves, paprika, pepper, sandalwood, and silks.
The vast Chinese empire too held riches reported back to Europe by a steady stream of Jesuit missionaries and adventurers. The British Crown in particular cultivated trading relationships with China, to access its tea, opium, gunpowder, and luxury goods. Through a combination of diplomacy and warfare, the British succeeded in establishing a trading port in Hong Kong, which by the nineteenth century had become a crucial link in its maritime Empire. Of course, alongside such lucrative trading activities, piracy also flourished, not only between rival colonial merchant navies, but also from local pirates. In the Indian Ocean, the English, French, and Dutch pirates who had largely been driven out by the East India Company were replaced by Indian and SriLankan corsairs, or even by opportunistic merchants from South East Asia. Of all of these though, none could compare to the piratical admirals of the South China Sea, whose fleets in some cases numbered hundreds of vessels.
33. Insulae Indiae orientalis Mercator, Gerard and Hondius, Jodocus Copper engraved with hand colour [Amsterdam, c.1620] 140 x 195 mm A decorative miniature map of the East Indies, modern day south-east Asia, from a German edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas Minor. The map is beautifully ornamented in hand colour. Sea coasts and borders are outlined, principal cities and trading ports are picked out in red, and mountain ranges and reefs are marked. The title of the map is enclosed in a strapwork oval cartouche, and a similar baroque cartouche in the bottom right contains a scale in German miles. The map is further embellished by a large decorative compass rose, which casts its many rhumb lines across the region.
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At the time of publication, the East Indies were of principal interest to the Dutch, comprising a signiďŹ cant portion of their maritime empire and the wealth that this generated. The many small islets and landmasses of the Spice Islands are meticulously mapped and labelled, although the southernmost coasts of Java and New Guinea remain uncharted. At the extreme right of the map, the Mariana islands are labelled with their original Spanish title, Islas de Ladrones, or Isles of Thieves, so called by Magellan as his ships had been ransacked by the local Chamorro people while at anchor. Condition: Strong, clean impression. German text on verso. [44301] ÂŁ475
A series of three illustrations of Dutch naval exploration of the Spice Islands from the Historische beschrijvinghe der seer wijt beroemde coop-stadt Amsterdam (Historical description of the famous trading city Amsterdam) by Johannes Isaac Pontanus, first published in Latin (Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium historia) by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam in 1611. Three years later, in 1614, Jodocus Hondius had the book translated by Petrus Montanus into Middle-Dutch and published it again. It was put on the Index because of its hostility towards Roman Catholics. The book was essentially a cumulative history of all Dutch knowledge of the world, through the efforts of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and their various commercial and exploratory enterprises. These three prints derive from the rare proscribed Dutch edition.
34. The Battle of Cape Rachando [Anonymous] Copper engraving [Tot Amsterdam, Ghedruckt by Iudocum Hondium, woonende inde Calver-Straet, inden Wackeren Hont. Anno 1614. Met Privilegie.] Image 110 x 149 mm, Plate 112 x 152 mm, Sheet 223 x 168 mm An illustration of part of the Battle of Cape Rachando, a sea-battle between the Portuguese and the Dutch Admiral Cornelis Matelief the Younger. (‘Strijt te waeter tusschen de Portugesen en Matelief’). This battle for the control of the Straits of Malacca took place from August 16th to the 18th in 1606. The twelve Dutch ships are seen on the left, indicated as “Matelivij naves 12” and the Portuguese fleet is shown on the right as “Lisitanice naves”. The illustration on verso shows The Siege of Malacca (’T’beleg van Malacca’) by the Dutch fleet under the command of Matelief, right before the Battle of Cape Rachando would take place. [42550] £175
35. The Battle of Cape Rachando [Anonymous] Copper engraving [Tot Amsterdam, Ghedruckt by Iudocum Hondium, woonende inde Calver-Straet, inden Wackeren Hont. Anno 1614. Met Privilegie.] Image 110 x 148 mm, Plate 114 x 152 mm, Sheet 223 x 166 mm
36. The First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia [Anonymous] Copper engraving [Tot Amsterdam, Ghedruckt by Iudocum Hondium, woonende inde Calver-Straet, inden Wackeren Hont. Anno 1614. Met Privilegie.] Image 112 x 150 mm, Plate 116 x 153 mm, Sheet 223 x 168 mm
Another illustration of part of the Battle of Cape Rachando. On the left the ship of the Vice Admiral of Holland “Vice admiralius Holla[n]d” is shown in a precarious position between two Portuguese ships “Lusitanica”, behind this a Portuguese ship is fighting two Dutch ships at once, the ship on the right manned by the Dutch Admiral Matelief. In the background on the left the remainder of the Portuguese fleet is seen fleeing.
An illustration of the First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia, showing the number and equipment of the fleet (‘T’getal ende toerustinge der Schepen’). The print shows the four ships that made up the expedition, namely ‘Mauritius’ (named after the Dutch Prince Maurits), ‘Hollandia’, ‘De Jacht’ (possibly also known as ‘Duyfken’) and ‘Amsterodamum’.
[42551] £175
Amsterdam merchants had sent explorer Cornelis de Houtman (1565-1599) on a mission to Lisbon in 1592 to gather information on the Spice Islands. On Houtman’s return in 1594 the merchants founded the Compagnie van Verre (The Long-Distance Company), which would set out on the second of April 1595 and would return in 1597. [42552] £175
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37. On these Islands which are now becom a Kingdom used the famous Pyrates, Yquon et Kocksinga to Resort Ogilby, John Copper engraved with hand colour [London. Printed by Tho. Johnson for the Author, and are to be had at his House in White Fryers. MDCLXXI [1671] 292 x 352 mm An intriguing and eccentric map of the coastal bays of Xiamen, and the islands used by Ming pirates during the seventeeth century, from Ogilby’s Atlas Chinensis. The map depicts the islands of Amoy and Quemoy, modern day Xiamen and Kinmen, as well as parts of the Chinese coast north of Hong Kong. As the lengthy title of the map suggests, the islands were important bastions for the famous Ming nationalist and pirate, Koxinga, whose successful but short career put significant pressure on the fledgling Qing government. After attacking Nanjing, Koxinga led his pirate fleet to the island of Formosa (Taiwan), where he overthrew the Dutch colonists, and established a loyalist Ming base. His fleets were also instrumental in harassing Spanish holdings in the Philippines. 62
The Atlas Chinensis was an English translation of an account of two embassies of the Dutch East Indies Company sent to the Emperor of China. Although essentially a translation of the travel journal of Johan Nieuhof, Ogilby rroneously attributed the work to Arnold Montanus. Aside from containing an invaluable wealth of material about Chinese customs as seen through seventeeth century European eyes, the work also contains a lengthy description of the actions and history of various Ming loyalists and rebels and their resistance to the Qing conquest. Condition: Pressed central vertical fold as issued. Professionally repaired tears to central fold. Thinning to sheet at centre. Tear repairs and infilling to bottom margin. [44538] £375
38. The Effigies of Mr. Jno. Nieuhoff [Anonymous] Copper engraving [London. Churchill. c. 1740.] Image 250 x 163 mm, Sheet 352 x 218 mm A detailed half-length portrait of Johan Nieuhof, with his right arm leaning on a table in the foreground, clutching a rolled drawing. A curtained window behind looks out at a sailing ship in rough waters. Although by an unknown engraver, this engraving appears to be a slightly cruder and enlarged copy of a portrait engraved by Johannes Lingelbach. Frontispiece to ‘The Effigies of Mr Nieuhoff’ published in Churchill’s ‘A Collection of Voyages and Travels’ Johan Nieuhof (1618-1672) was one of the most important and prolific Dutch travel writers of the seventeenth century. His travels, as part of expeditions led by the Dutch West and East Indies Companies took him to Brazil, the Philippines, China, Batavia, Ceylon, India, Madagascar, Mauritius, and many other parts of the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish maritime empires. His lasting legacy is an account of an embassy to China, in which he took part on behalf of the VOC, and which became the basis for almost all subsequent European travel narratives about China and its customs, history, politics, and flora and fauna. National Maritime Museum PAD2585 Condition: Good impression with full margins. Tears to left hand margin, not affecting plate or image. [44547] £80
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39. Destruction of the Pirate Squadron Commanded by Chui Apoo, in Byas Bay, China, 1st. October, 1849. after Dr. Edward Hodges Cree Lithograph with original hand colouring Dickinson & Co. Lith. London [c.1850] Image 350 x 538 mm A rare and important depiction of the destruction of a pirate fleet in the South China Sea, from a series of lithographs after original watercolours by the naval surgeon Dr Hodges Cree. The scene commemorates the bombardment of the notorious Qing pirate Chui A-poo and his ships by a combined force of British and Chinese warships, including the steam ship Fury, upon which Hodges Cree was serving at the time. The battle, which resulted in a resounding victory for the British and Chinese forces, was inspired by Chui Apoo’s murder of two British naval officers. Despite their numbers, with over fifty vessels anchored in Bias Bay near Hong Kong, the pirates were severely outgunned. 400 pirates perished, and Chui A-poo, badly wounded, was captured and sentenced to Transportation to Tasmania, but hanged himself rather than serve his exile. 64
Inscription below image reads: Destruction of the Pirate Squadron commanded by Chui Apoo, in Byas Bay, China, 1st October 1849, By Her Majesty’s sloop Columbine, J.C. Dalrymple Hay Esq Commr, HM steam sloop Fury, S. Willcox Esq Commr, and HMS Hastings. Condition: Overall time toning and slight fading to original hand colouring. Repaired puncture to centre of top margin and lower right foreground. Repaired tear to left margin 15mm into image, repaired tear to right margin well outside of the image. Repaired surface damage to mountains and sky middle and left top. Framed in its original period frame. [44518] £1,750
40. Attack on, and Destruction of, Part of the Pirate Squadron of Shap-ng-Tsai, in the Gulf of Tonkin, on the 21st. of October, 1849. after Dr. Edward Hodges Cree Lithograph with original hand colouring Dickinson & Co. Lith. London [c.1850] Image 354 x 540 mm A rare and important depiction of the destruction of a pirate fleet in the South China Sea, from a series of lithographs after original watercolours by the naval surgeon Dr Hodges Cree. The scene shows part of the combined British and Chinese effort to capture the notorious pirate Shap Ng-Tsai, who commanded a piratical fleet of at least 70 vessels, and terrorised the seacoasts and shipping lanes south of Hong Kong. Through extortion, protection rackets, ransom, and outright piracy, Shap Ng-Tsai became such a menace to the Chinese government that, having repeatedly avoided attempts at capture, he was offered a pardon and a military commission. These overtures were refused, and his piratical career continued until he was implicated in the sinking of a British squadron carrying opium in 1849.
The British, with assistance from a number of Qing vessels, eventually tracked the pirates to the coast of Vietnam, where most of the pirate fleet was destroyed. Shap Ng-Tsai escaped the battle, and eventually accepted a pardon, joining the Qing navy as an officer. Inscription below image reads: Attack on, and Destruction of, Part of the Pirate Squadron of Shap-ngTsai, in the Gulf of Tonkin, on the 21st. of October, 1849. By Her Majesty’s Sloop, Columbine, J.C. Dalrymple Hay Esq.r Comm.r, H.M.Steam Sloop, Fury, J.Wilcox, Esq. r Comm.r & Hon. E.I.Co’s hired Armed Steam Vessel Phlegethon, Condition: Overall time toning and slight fading to original hand colouring, repaired tear to left near the mast of the ship. Framed in its original period frame. [44519] £1,750
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NEW WORLDS & NEW DISCOVERIES
Behind each of the great and well-known stories of maritime triumph, exploration, and discovery are undoubtedly hundreds of untold stories of failure, loss, and misguided ambition, but the events described in the four chapters above are to a very large extent the product of the successes of a small number of individuals. The ďŹ nal chapter of At Sea: Pirates, Seafarers, & Voyages of Discovery thus highlights many of the individuals and expeditions that changed the course of European history.
Included in the following pages are the biographies of some of the famous faces of naval exploration, paired with areas of the globe upon which their achievements had a profound eect, for better or for worse: Columbus and the New World, Walter Raleigh and the American colonies, Magellan and the history of polar exploration, and the circuitous navigations of Drake, de Gama, Anson, and Cook.
Christopher Columbus (c. 1451-1506) was a master navigator who made four voyages from Europe to the Americas between 1492 and 1500. Even though he was not technically the first European to set sail and travel to the Americas, his discoveries opened the door for European exploration and colonization of the area. His expeditions were sponsored by Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Spain, but his nationality has long been deputed between scholars, as little is known about his early life. He was the son of the Domenico Colombo, a wool merchant who was mainly active in Genoa, and Sussana Fontanarossa. Together with his brother Bartholomew, he started working as a chart maker for the Portuguese merchant navy in 1476. Columbus soon started going on trade expeditions in Europe with the marine. It was not until 1484 that Columbus would start looking to cross the Atlantic, and after several rejections of sponsorship, he was finally able to obtain the support of the Spanish monarchs in 1492. The intention was to find a sea route from Spain to China, India and the Spice Islands, to provide the empire with herbs and spices, gold, places to explore and conquer as well as people to convert to Christianity. In reality Columbus ended up exploring the Caribbean, including parts of the Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica.
41. Columbus William Holl Stipple [London: Printed for Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange; and Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, Paternoster Row, 1819] Image 52 x 42 mm, Plate 80 x 135 mm A miniature portrait of Columbus, from “The Biographical Magazine.
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Condition: Miniature oval portrait on full sheet. Biography of Columbus underneath the image. Slight overall time toning, mainly to the edges of the sheet. [44527] £70
42. Columbus Breaking the Egg William Hogarth Etching Design’d & Etch’d by Wm: Hogarth Decem 1. 1753. [J & J Boydell c.1802] Image 142 x 180 mm, Plate 164 x 193 mm A scene of the apocryphal story of the ‘Egg of Columbus,’ originally used as the subscription ticket for Hogarth’s ‘The Analysis of Beauty.’ The scene, modelled on Da Vinci’s Last Supper, depicts Christopher Columbus seated at a table with a group of his fellows. The story concerns a group of detractors who had complained to Columbus that his journey was no great discovery, being a feat that many men could have accomplished. In retaliation, Columbus challenged the men that they could not stand an egg on its end. When his detractors admitted defeat, Columbus smashed one end of the egg, allowing it to stand.
In doing so, he demonstrated that although the task was simple, it was only such now that he had shown the way. His detractors are shown equally in attitudes of frustration, revelation, and amusement. In choosing such a story, Hogarth was evidently pointing to himself as the Columbus of Art, with the landmark discovery of his serpentine ‘Line of Beauty’ laid out on the table in the form of the two eels resting on the plate. The tops of some of the letters of the original subscription text are still visible at the very bottom of the plate. Paulson 194 ii/ii, BM Satires 3192 Condition: Excellent impression with wide margins. Watermark ‘S Lay.’ [43054] £120
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43. Ocean Atlantique ou Mer du Nord. Mortier, Pierre Copper engraved with original hand colour c. 1700 470 x 605 mm A stunning sea chart of the Atlantic Ocean charting the west coast of Africa and the east coast of the United States, the Caribbean Islands, Central America and the northern tip of South America in full original wash colour. The major shipping routes are plotted with striking rhumb lines and a decorative compass rose highlighted in gold in the centre of the map.
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Full inscription below title reads: Ocean Atlantique ou Mer du Nord.Ou font Exactement observée le Route d’Europe aux Indes Occidentales et des Indes Occidentales en Europe. Dressé sur les Relations les plus Nouvelles A Amsterdam Chez Pierre Mortier Libraire. Avec Privilege de nos Seigneurs les Etats. [37857] £1,200
44. Mondo Nuovo Porro, Girolamo after Porcacchi, Tommaso Copper engraved [Venice, c.1572] 102 x 140 mm An excellent impression of one of the earliest published maps of North America, engraved by Girolamo Porro for Tommaso Porcacchi’s L’isole più famose del mondo. Cartographically, the map is essentially a small-scale version of the seminal map of the continent by Paolo Forlani. The landmass of North America, while not as thin or stretched as the ‘Baccalearum Regio’ that appears in earlier sixteenth century maps, is still significantly elongated, with the eastern seaboard particularly exaggerated. California is depicted correctly, not as an island, though features an erroneous promontory on the northwest coast. Similarly exaggerated promontories are depicted on the north coast of South America, though Mexico and the Caribbean are shown relatively correctly. Japan, labelled here as ‘Giapan’, is located equidistant from the coasts of California and China, directly below the Straits of Anian, which are depicted in detail here for the first time. The map is further embellished by a baroque title cartouche, a compass rose, and a pair of sea-monsters with elephantine heads. Above the map, the title in Italian appears below a decorative section divider, and Italian text below provides a history of the New World. Condition: Strong dark impression on full sheet. Italian text above and below plate, and on verso. Binding holes to left margin, not affecting plate. [42872] £950
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Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1554 –1618) was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He studied at Oriel College in Oxford in 1572 and shortly thereafter at Middle Temple law college. Raleigh fought on the side of the French Protestants in the Wars of religion in 1569, and was later noticed by Queen Elizabeth for his criticism of English policies implemented in Ireland when he fought the Irish rebels at Munster in 1580. He soon became a favourite of the Queen, who granted him influential positions at court and helped him greatly improve his financial situation. Raleigh was knighted in 1587, but fell from grace in 1592 when the queen discovered that he had secretly started a family. Elizabeth imprisoned Raleigh and his wife in the Tower of London, from which he could soon buy his freedom, but he was unable to regain favor. His extravagant appearance, spending habits and bold opinions made him unpopular with the court. He was accused of conspiring against King James I in 1603 and once again imprisoned at the Tower. Raleigh had always been very interested in the sciences, mainly mathematics and navigation, and had tried to establish a colony near Roanake Island in present day North Carolina between 1584 and 1589. He never travelled there himself, but went on expeditions to Cadiz in Spain, the Azores and journeyed to what is now known as Venezuela. He searched for the legendary city of El Dorado in South America, but only found some small gold mines. Raleigh convinced King James to release him from prison in 1616 and finance a second expedition to find gold in Venezuela, but after Raleigh returned with nothing to show, the king upheld the suspended death sentence and had Raleigh executed. 72
45. The true and lively Portraiture of the Ho.ble and learned Knight Sr. Walter Raleigh Robert Vaughan Copper engraving c. 1650 Image 98 x 65 mm, Sheet 130 x 73 mm O’Donoghue 22, Hind III.61.48a. Condition: Excellent impression. Trimmed within plate mark and grangerised into an album page [40046] £200
46. Sir Walter Raleigh William Holl Stipple [London: Printed for Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange; and Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, Paternoster Row, 1819] Image 53 x 43 mm, Sheet 240 x 148 mm A miniature portrait of Walter Raleigh, from “The Biographical Magazine; Containing Portraits of Eminent and Ingenious Persons of every age and nation, with their lives and characters”. Condition: Miniature oval portrait on full sheet. Biography of Walter Raleigh underneath the image. Minor overall time toning, mainly to the edges of the sheet. [44525] £70
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47. Vir Virginia Insula Habitator Pietro Bertelli Etching [Padua, 1589] Image 111 x 89 mm, Sheet 115 x 90 mm A scarce 16th century Native American costume print, Plate 28 from Pietro Bertelli’s ‘Diversarum nationum habitus.’ The man, likely a warrior of the Algonquian, Iroquoian, or Siouan peoples, is depicted wearing only a tasseled skirt, his feet and torso bare, a large beaded necklace, and three tall feathers in his hair. His upper body is heavily tattoed, as are his calves. With his left hand, he holds a long slender bow, and in his right, takes up an arrow. An empty quiver hangs from his waist. Behind, a group of his people are engaged in a dance around a totemic circle.
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‘Diversarum nationum habitus (Habits of different nations) was published in Padua in 1589. The work consisted mostly of plates, illustrating people from all over Europe in their contemporary dress. The publication also included plates of American and African dress, as well as specific portraits, alongside Venetian scenery and European monuments. Condition: Minor time toning and surface dirt. Trimmed close to printed border. Framed in an antique black and gold frame. [44514] £300
48. Unus Americanus ex Virginia Aetat: 23 Wenceslaus Hollar Etching 1645 Image and Sheet 105 x 77 mm A very scarce first state impression of Hollar’s fine early etching of a Native American. The sitter is depicted halflength and bare chested, showing his muscular torso. The upper section of his face is tattooed and he wears a head-dress made of teeth, as well as a crafted bead necklace and earrings. His hair is cut in a distinctive ‘mohawk,’ suggesting that he may be Iroquois, as these, along with Algonquian and Siouan peoples, were the original inhabitants of the British settlement of Virginia. Interestingly, the inscription running along the top of the etching reads, ‘W. Hollar ad vivum/ delin: et fecit 1645.’ Hollar’s claim that the portrait was drawn from life would suggest that this particular individual had travelled to Europe. Martine Gosselink believes that the individual in the portrait is the same man as one mentioned in the Amsterdam City records.
The man, nicknamed Jacques, was allegedly captured and presented to two Dutch soldiers, and subsequently put on display in Amsterdam in 1644. Hollar himself left England the same year, and may have seen Jacques on display in Antwerp. Pennington 2009 i/ii; New Hollstein (Hollar Part III) 816 i/ii. (Prior to the addition of * after ‘1645’) Condition: Trimmed within plate, small old repair to bottom right corner of sheet. Light foxing to sheet. Unidentified collectors mark on verso R.S. Lugt 2239b [44513] £1,700
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Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) also known as Fernao de Magalhaes in Portuguese or Fernando de Magallanes in Spanish, was born into Portuguese nobility, but his parents died when he was still a boy. He and his brother Diogo were sent to the Lisbon court, where Ferdinand lived as a page and developed an interest in cartography, astronomy and navigation. He decided to join the Portuguese navy in 1505 and learned about the competition between the Portuguese and the Spanish to find the quickest sea route to the famous Spice Islands. After serving the navy for several years, he approached King Manuel with a proposal to navigate to the Spice Islands by sailing west from Europe, as the established route was to travel east via the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean. Not only was Magellan’s proposal rejected, he also received no further employment from the king after he was wounded in a skirmish in Morocco, and falsely accused of illegal trading with the Moors. In 1517, Magellan decided to approach the Spanish king Charles I, and finally received support to travel west towards the Spice Islands, in hopes of finding a better and shorter sea route to the islands. He set out from Spain with five ships, sailed across the Atlantic, and through the Southern American Straits, which are now named after him. The journey had been dangerous and troublesome. Only about half of the crew reached the Philippines in 1521, where they got involved in a battle between two native chieftains, during which Magellan was killed. The remainder of his crew fled the Philippines under the leadership of Juan Sebastian Elanco (1476-1526), captain of the last remaining ship, and eventually reached the Spice Islands a couple of months later. Shortly afterwards they sailed back to Spain, making the eighteen men who arrived in 1522 the first to have successfully circumnavigated the globe.
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49. Ferdinand Magellanus John Ogilby Copper engraving [London. 1671] Image 279 x 166 mm, Plate 286 x 174 mm, Sheet 310 x 195 mm A fine seventeenth century portrait of the famous explorer Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480 - 1521), from John Ogilby’s ‘America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World’. Magellan is depicted holding a globe and compass, placed upon a map. The background features a sailing ship and coastal landscape. The portrait is surrounded by an ornately decorated border of ribbons and wreathes. Condition: Excellent impression. Light toning to sheet. Remnants of an offset library stamp to image. [44549] £120
50. Magellanici Freti Delineatio Bertius, Petrus Copper engraved with hand colour [Amsterdam, c.1616] 96 x 136 mm A miniature map of the Magellan straits, part of present day Chile, from a Latin edition of Petrus Bertius’ Tabularum geographicarum contractarum. The map’s borders and coasts are outlined, and the seas are mountain ranges of the region are washed in beautiful hand colour. In the bottom right corner, the title is enclosed in a round strapwork cartouche, while a cartouche enclosing the scale in German miles in the opposite corner is topped by a pair of penguins. In the top left is a large compass rose, its rhumb lines expanding across the left hand side of the plate.
The Magellan Straits, the natural sea passage separating Tierra del Fuego from the South American mainland, was the most important navigable passage between the Atlantic and Pacific until the construction of the Panama Canal, and as a result, played a vital role in the voyages of discovery and the maritime history of the New World. Condition: Excellent impression. Latin title above and Latin text on verso. [44300] £180
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51. Tabula Geogr. in qua admirandae navigationis cursus et recursus designatur Hondius, Jodocus Copper engraved with hand colour [Tot Amsterdam, Ghedruckt by Iudocum Hondium, woonende inde Calver-Straet, inden Wackeren Hont. Anno 1614. Met Privilegie.] 270 x 358 mm An ornate map of the Arctic circle, showing the path of the Dutch expedition of Willem Barentz, from the ‘Historische beschrijvinghe der seer wijt beroemde coop-stadt Amsterdam’ by Pontanus. The map shows the extent of Dutch knowledge of the northern polar regions, depicting the coasts of Scandinavia, Russia and Nova Zembla, parts of Tartary, the northernmost parts of Canada and Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, the top of Scotland, and two partial seacoasts marked as the Hudson glacier and ‘New Land.’ Unlike most earlier maps of the region, the north pole itself is in this example left blank, discarding the theoretical mountain and four islands used by Mercator, Ortelius, and others. 78
The fictitious island of Frisland can be seen south of Greenland, and the Straits of Anian are described as being the subject of many arguments regarding the division between Asia and the Americas. The path of Barentz’ voyage is plotted with a dotted line, setting out from Texel in the bottom left corner of the map, and continuing into the Sea of Tartary. The map’s title is enclosed in an attractive strapwork cartouche at the top of the map, the limit of the arctic circle is depicted with a red and white dashed line, and the sea coasts and boundaries of each nation are outlined in beautiful hand colour. Condition: Vertical and horizontal folds as issued. Minor time toning to folds. Blank on verso [42332] £1,500
52. IV. Critical Position of H.M.S. Investigator on the North-Coast of Baring Island. August 20th 1851. William Simpson after Lieut. Samuel Gurney Creswell Chromolithograph Printed in Colours by Day & Son, Lithrs. to the Queen. / London. Published 15th May 1854, by Day & Son, Gate St. Linc. Inn Fds.& Ackermann & Co. Strand. Image 307 x 420 mm, Sheet 433 x 577 mm A fantastically dramatic illustration of the HMS Investigator trapped in sea-ice during its attempted navigation of the Northwest Passage, Plate IV from a series published by Day & Son entitled: ‘A Series of Eight Sketches in Colour: together with a Coloured Map of the Route; By Lieut. S. G. Cresswell, of the Voyages of H. M. S. Investigator, Capt. M’Clure, during the Discovery of the North-West Passage’ (1854).
McClure’s team likewise lost their vessel, the HMS Investigator, which became trapped in ice near Viscount Melville Sound and was eventually abandoned after three bitter winters. The ship was rediscovered, preserved, in 2010. McClure and his men were fortunate to be rescued by a sledge team from Belcher’s expedition, and returned, nearly dead from starvation, to England.
The McClure expedition was one of the greatest feats in the history of Arctic navigation and exploration. McClure’s stated intention was the discovery and hopeful rescue of the Franklin expedition, which had disappeared in the late 1840s. In this, the expedition was a failure, as the Franklin party had perished to a man after their ships had become frozen in near King William Island.
Although not truly a navigation, because of the short distance travelled by sledge, McClure and his party are the first known to have discovered and traversed the Northwest Passage. Condition: Excellent clean impression. No tears or repairs [33695] £2,000
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Sir Francis Drake (c.1540 - 27th January 1596) was an English naval commander, explorer, privateer, politician, and Elizabethan courtier. Drake’s two greatest martime achievements were his circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580, and his various actions against the Spanish Armada, while serving as vice admiral of the English fleet. His circumnavigation was the second successful attempt in history, after Magellan and Elcano, and the first to be completed by a single captain. Drake was an implacable and constant enemy of the Spaniards, preying upon the Spanish treasure fleets, and ushering in the first great era of piracy and privateering in the West Indies. The King of Spain, Philip II offered a reward for Drake’s life of 20,000 ducats, but it was dysentery, rather than the Spanish, that eventually took his life, while he was anchored off the coast of Panama.
53. Franciscus Drake Nicolas de Larmessin II after Crispijn de Passe the Elder Copper engraving François Foppens, Brussels, 1682 Image and plate 184 x 140 mm Plate to Bullart’s ‘Academie des Sciences’ (1682). Half-length portrait of Sir Francis Drake turned slightly to the left, holding a globe inscribed with ‘America’. The top right corner of the engraving features Drake’s coat of arms. After Crispijn der Passe the Elder’s portrait Franciscus Drake Miles Auratus, illustration from the Heroologia Anglica from 1620. O’Donoghue 15. Condition: Excellent impression, very faint spotting to left hand side of image. Framed in an antique black and gold frame. [44515] £300
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54. Sr Francis Drake Jacobus Houbraken Copper engraving J. Houbraken Sculp. Amst. [c. 1740] Image 342 x 212 mm, Plate 360 x 228 mm, Sheet 465 x 312 mm A portrait of Sir Francis Drake, shown bust-length, wearing a lace collar and gorget in an ornate oval frame. He is surrounded by objects of naval conquest and exploration, including a trident, a mast, cannons, an anchor, and a crown. A banner across the bottom of the frame is emblazoned with his name, whilst below this, a sea battle is portrayed in an ovoid frame. It is most probably that of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. This portrait of Drake is from Thomas Birch’s The Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain. The portraits featured in the series, which were engraved by Jacob Houbraken and George Vertue, were originally issued from 1737 onwards in portfolios of four portraits.
Between 1743 and 1752, the series was published by John and Paul Knapton in London in the form of Birch’s The Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, and contained biographies alongside the portraits. The number of plates included varied from edition to edition. Although the majority contained 108 plates, some editions contained as many as 120. Houbraken was responsible for producing a large proportion of the portraits, with Vertue only engraving around seven. The ornamental surroundings featured on the plates were engraved prior to the portraits, and were done so by Hubert-François Gravelot. O’Donoghue 20, Ver Huell 24 Condition: Strong, dark impression with full margins. [44546] £200
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55. A Chart of the Voyage of Gama, and of the Portuguese Discoveries Lodge, John Copper engraving with hand colour Engraved for the English Lusiad. [1778] 228 x 334 mm A world map which outlines the journey of explorer Vasco da Gama (c.1460-1524), who set sail from Portugal in 1497, and navigated to the East Indies by way of Cape of Good Hope. This first voyage opened up the sea route for European empires to the East. Half a century later, the Portuguese soldier and sailor Luis Vaz de Camoens (c.1524-1580) took the same route in the king’s service after he was pardoned for his part in a street fight against a royal officer. Camoens’ journey took over fifteen years, but inspired him to write an epic poem about his travels, Vasco da Gama’s discovery, and reads as an ode to Portugal, which was growing in political importance.
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The work was first published in 1572 with the title, “Os Lusiadas”, referring to the ancient Roman province Lusitania, the borders of which closely correspond to those of present day Portugal. The style and story line of the poem are inspired by epics such as Virgil’s “Aneaid” and Homer’s “Illiad” and “Odyssey”. Camoens’ work was translated to English by William Julius Mickle (17351788) in 1776 and became known as “The Lusiad; or the Discovery of India. An Epic Poem.” This map by John Lodge was produced for the English edition of the book. Condition: Excellent impression with clear plate mark. Two pressed vertical folds as issued. Minor tears to top and bottom margin, not affecting image. [44524] £175
56. The Rt. Honble. Lord Anson Baron of Soberton after Sir Joshua Reynolds Mezzotint Printed for John Bowles and Son at the Black Horse in Cornhill. [c. 1755] Image 320 x 250 mm, Plate 353 x 251 mm, Sheet 463 x 287 mm A three quarter length portrait of George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, right hand on his hip, his left hand to the side with hat under his left arm, a ship with canons firing in the background. The inscription below reads: ‘First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty Vice Admiral of Great Britain, Admiral of the Blue Squadron & one of his Majesty’s most Honble. Privy Council.’
Lennox-Boyd ii/ii, Chaloner Smith 1759, O’Donoghue not recorded, Hamilton not recorded. Ex. Col.: Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd Condition: Light dirt build-up to margins. Small indent above sitter’s head. [37701] £350
George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, (23 April 1697 – 6 June 1762) was a Royal Navy officer. Anson served as a junior officer during the War of the Spanish Succession, and then saw active service against Spain at the Battle of Cape Passaro during the War of the Quadruple Alliance. He then undertook a circumnavigation of the globe during the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
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57. A New Map of the World in Two Hemispheres with the New Discoveries & Tracts of the Circum Navigators vizt. Dampier & Anson round it: Drawn from the latest Geographers and greatly Improved from the Sieurs D’Anville & Robert Sayer, Robert Copper engraved with early hand colour London, Printed for Robt. Sayer Map and Printseller at the Golden Buck in Fleet Street [c.1755] 550 x 970 mm Condition: Central vertical join and old vertical folds. Old tear repair to bottom of right hand fold with minor adhesive staining. Light time toning to sheet. Otherwise strong impression with early outline colour. [43592] £5,000
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A rare and impressive example of Robert Sayer’s 1755 separately published wall map of the world in two hemispheres, with early hand colour. Printed over two sheets, and joined at centre, this example appears to have been bound into an atlas or extra-illustrated volume. The title of the map advertises it as having been significantly improved from the early works of other publishers and cartographers. The northernmost reaches of the American west coast are still uncharted, listed here as ‘Parts Unknown,’ as is the east coast of Australia. The top end of Australia, here ‘New Holland’ is putatively joined to Papua New Guinea and referred to as a separate region under the title ‘Carpentaria.’ Tasmania’s northern coastline is as yet unexplored, and the island itself retains the Dutch name ‘Dimens Land.’ At the extreme left of the Western Hemisphere, New Zealand’s western coastline is partially charted. The Antarctic region, left entirely blank and at this point completely unknown, carries a message that the inhabitants, if such exist, spend their time in persistent Night when the Sun is in the Tropic of Cancer, and in persistent Day when it is in the Tropic of Capricorn. At the other pole, the opposite condition is listed for those who dwell in the Arctic. Russian exploration in the Bering Strait is marked, while Greenland’s treatment is confused. In the Western Hemisphere, it is depicted as a peninsula attached to the top of Canada, while in the Eastern, it is shown as two separate territories, an island marked ‘Greenland,’ and a stretch of coastline marked ‘Groenland.’
Coastlines and the divisions of different countries and regions are outlined in hand colour, and the voyages of Anson and Dampier are marked as dashed lines. Anson’s circumnavigation, completed only a decade before the issuing of this map, had a significant impact on British cartography in the era before Cook. His capture of the Spanish treasure ship Nuestra Señora de Covadonga not only earned Anson and the Crown over one million pieces of eight, but also copies of the Spanish admiralty’s charts of the Pacific, adding numerous islands including the Anson Archipelago to British maritime knowledge. Trade winds, tides, monsoons, the paths of hurricanes and tornadoes, and other navigational and meteorological points of interest are also marked and illustrated. Areas of dotted or crossed lines depict reefs, bays, and shoals, including Deep Bay off the western coast of Australia, where Dampier, in 1688, became the first Englishman to survey the new continent. His studies of Australian flora and fauna were to have a profound effect on later British expeditions to New Holland. In the four corners of the map, smaller circles show the North and South polar regions, as well as the Hemispheres as illuminated by the Sun during the Summer and Winter Solstices. The remaining spaces are filled with commentary and notes on cartography, geography, and history more generally, as well as comments about the Antipodes, the composition of the globe in square miles, and peculiarities of the Polar regions.
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Captain James Cook (1728-1779) was a British navigator who wanted not only wanted to go ‘farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go’. He worked as a farmer in his birthplace of Yorkshire until he was seventeen years old and won an apprenticeship with a merchant sailing company. Instead of becoming a captain at this company, he decided to enlist in the British Royal Navy as a new recruit in 1755. Once again he quickly rose through the ranks and he got the opportunity to become captain of his own ship. Because he was an excellent mapmaker, he was send on three expeditions between 1769 and 1779 to discover, explore and map unknown territories such as the “Great Southern Continent” and the Northwest Passage in the Artic. He was the first to sail along the eastern coast of Australia, discovered that New Zealand was an island, and mapped parts of the world unknown to Europeans including the upper coast of Canada, Alaska, and Tahiti. His landing on Hawaii in 1779 coincided with a festival for the Hawaiian god Lono, so that for a brief period of time the natives believed Cook to be their god. He and his crew mates accepted all the food and gifts, but when one of Cook’s men died from a stroke, the natives realised the strange white men were not immortal and animosity rose between the two groups. When a small cutter ship was stolen by the natives, Cook went ashore to try and take the native King hostage. Panicked ensued when the natives tried to defend their leader and where shot by one of the ships cannons. Cook was unable to flee and was attacked, eventually stabbed to death by a knife he himself had offered the natives as a gift. After his death, the natives handled his corpse as they would have a king’s, cutting away and roasting the flesh, but preserving skull, bones and hands, which were eventually given to Captain Clerke and returned to England.
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58. Captain Cook William Holl Stipple [London: Printed for Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange; and Sherwood, Neely, & Jones, Paternoster Row, 1819] Image 52 x 42 mm, Sheet 234 x 138 mm A miniature portrait of Captain Cook, from “The Biographical Magazine.” Condition: Miniature oval portrait on full sheet. Biography underneath image. Minor overall time toning, mainly to the edges of the sheet. [44528] £75
59. [Plate to Shew the Figure of the Earth] [Anonymous] Copper engraved London: Printed for J.Johnson, G. and J.Robinson, F. and C. Rivington, G.Wilkie, J.Scatcherd, Longman and Rees, C.Law and J.Mawman. [c. 1805] 107 x 70 mm A charming miniature map of the globe, with outsized ships and figures demonstrating lines of sight to the horizon, from A New and Easy Introduction to Universal Geography. The figures, in naval costume and leaning on canes, stand in each hemisphere, the North in the British Isles, the South, labelled ‘Antipodes,’ in New Zealand. The globe just manages to squeeze in sections of every continent, with the easternmost point of Brazil representing the Americas, and the Middle East and Arabian peninsula for Asia. Europe and Africa are depicted at centre.
The series A New and Easy Introduction to Universal Geography was intended as a visual description of the figure, motions, and dimensions of the earth, as well as a depiction of the current extent of empires, kingdoms, and provinces. The work was undertaken by the Reverend R. Turner, a graduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. The maps and illustrations were engraved in copper, though the artists commissioned were myriad and unfortunately not specified. Condition: Excellent impression. Light toning to sheet. Framed in an antique frame. [44522] £150 87
60. [Southwestern Europe and West Africa] Coronelli, Vincenzo Copper engraved [Venice, 1696-1701] 410 x 250 mm A rare example of a Coronelli globe gore, showing the British Isles and parts of Scandinavia, south-western Europe, and West Africa. The gore was originally published in the tenth volume of Coronelli’s first edition of the Atlante Veneto, published between 1696 and 1701. The tenth volume was essentially a supplement to the atlas, entitled Libro dei Globi. Each of the known copies of the Libro dei Globi are slightly different, even in the number of maps printed, varying between 135 and around 170 plates. This was done because the large gores often had overlapping areas, which was useful for the globemaker, but not necessary for a printed work. The gores used by the mapmakers were also too large to print in a book. Coronelli solved this by splitting the printing of his plates over two sheets. In the first edition he did this by masking the part of the plate he was not printing which is why the plate mark is only visible on three sides of the gore in this edition. For the second edition, he cut the plates down at the Tropic, and this edition again has complete plate marks. Condition: Trimmed just inside printed border at bottom left. Minor time toning and softening to top and bottom edges of the sheet. Small worm hole to centre left. Framed as an object in a black box frame. [44539] £650
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BIOGRAPHIES
Authors, Engravers, & Mapmakers Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was a Paris-born geographer, hydrographer of the French Navy, member of the Académie de Marine and of the Royal Society of London, and part of the French intellectual group the Philosophes. He produced a large number of individual maps of particular interest to the Ministère de la Marine. His maps of Canada and of French territories in North America (New France, Acadia, Louisiana) are particularly valuable, as he produced them to reflect the ongoing discoveries in these regions. Bellin was appointed hydrographer to the king in 1741 and would eventually retire and die at Versailles. His most impressive work was “Le Petit Atlas Maritime” in which he compiled an overview of all the coastlines, ports and harbour cities of the known world at the time, with no less than 581 maps. Robert Bénard (1734- after 1778) was a French engraver, best known for executing and overseeing the printing of over 1800 illustrative plates for Diderot’s seminal Encyclopédie, Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres. Following designs by Goussier, Benard engravings cover a vast array of topics, from scientific, mathematical, and biological, to heraldic, military, and maritime. The Encyclopédie was a French general encyclopaedia in 28 volumes published in Paris between 1751 and 1772. The general editor of the series was Denis Diderot, the celebrated Enlightenment philosopher, author, and art critic. The broad and ambitious aim of the Encyclopédie was to gather together the collected knowledge of the world into a single work. As a result, some of greatest French minds of the age were contributors, including d’Alembert, Rousseau, and Voltaire. The Encyclopédie played an important role in the development of French intellectual fervour in the lead up to the Revolution. The 17 volumes of articles were accompanied by 11 volumes of illustrative plates, the majority of which were executed by Robert Bénard after drawings by LouisJacques Goussier. Pietro Bertelli (fl. 1594-1616) was a printmaker, editor and publisher who was mostly active in Venice. 90
Petrus Bertius (14th November 1565 – 13th October 1629) was a Flemish theologian, historian, geographer and cartographer and was related to Jodocus Hondius Sr. and Pieter van den Keere by marriage. Bertius studied at the University of Leiden and later travelled in Germany and Russia. In 1620 he emigrated to France where he was appointed as a cosmographer to the court Louis XIII. Bertius published a number of folio maps, but never published an atlas of his own. His maps were either separately published or included in atlases and books by other publishers. The majority of the plates for his Tabularum geographicarum contractarum libri septem were reduced versions of those published in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas Minor. The first edition, published by Cornelis Claes, was published in Amsterdam in 1600, using a suite of miniature maps first published in the CaertThresoor by Barent Langenes. Over the next fifty years, the Bertius atlas was issued numerous times in Latin, French, and German, its collection of maps continually increasing with new plates, the majority of which were engraved by Bertius’ brothers-in-law Jodocus Hondius and van den Keere. Hondius the Younger’s first issue of the Bertius atlas, published in 1616, was an immediate commercial success, and the second edition appeared later the same year. The Blaeu Family were one of the most famous publishers of maps, globes and atlases during the seventeenth-century. Cartographers, globe makers and booksellers, the Blaeu business flourished in Amsterdam for over 40 years, until a fire destroyed their premises in 1672. They lost all of their plates, prints and stock, which effectively ruined the firm. Willem Blaeu founded the business in 1596. It initially functioned as a globe and instrument makers, but soon expanded into maps, topography and sea charts. The Atlas Novus was Willems great work; a major work which intended to include the most up-to-date maps of the entire world. He issued the first two volumes in 1635, but died in 1638 before the atlas was completed.
The running of the business was passed on to his sons Johannes and Cornelius, in addition to the role of the official cartographer of the East India Company. After the death of Cornelis in 1644, Johannes continued the business alone and established his own reputation as a great mapmaker. Johannes completed his father’s grand project in 1655 with the sixth and final volume of the Atlas Novus. He also produced the Tooneel der Steden van der Vereenighde Nederlanden in 1649-1653, as well as a similar set of Italian town plans which were published in 1663. John Boydell (1719 - 1804) was an English engraver, and one of the most influential print sellers of the Georgian period. At the age of twenty one, Boydell was apprenticed to the engraver William Henry Toms, and enrolled himself in the St. Martin’s Lane Academy in order to study drawing. Given the funds raised by the sales of Boydell’s “Collection of One Hundred Views in England and Wales”, 1755, he turned to the importation of foreign prints. Despite great success in this market his legacy is largely defined by “The Shakespeare Gallery”; a project that he initiated in 1786. In addition to the gallery, which was located in Pall Mall, Boydell released folios which illustrated the works of the Bard of Avon and were comprised of engravings after artists such as Henry Fuseli, Richard Westall, John Opie and Sir Joshua Reynolds. He is credited with changing the course of English painting by creating a market for historical and literary works. In honour of this, and his long standing dedication to civil duties, Boydell became the Mayor of London in 1790. Between 1572 and 1617, Georg Braun (1541-1622) and Frans Hogenberg (1535-1590) published six volumes of their Civitates Orbis Terrarum, containing over 500 prospects, views, and maps of mostly European cities, envisioned as a companion to Ortelius’ atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Braun was the editor of the series, with Hogenberg as principle engraver. They relied mainly on existing cartography, but also on drawings made by the Antwerp artist Joris Hoefnagel (15421600), who had travelled through most of Western Europe. After Joris Hoefnagel’s death his son Jakob continued the work for the Civitates. Charles Brooking (c.1723-1759) was a London born painter and draughtsman, specialised in marine subjects. He worked around the dockyard at Deptford from a young age on and his close observations of ships would benefit him as a painter.
Vincenzo Coronelli (1650 - 1718) was a Venetian Franciscan monk, cosmographer, cartographer, publisher, and encyclopedist. In 1663 Coronelli was accepted into the Conventual Franciscans, and by 1674 had been awarded a doctorate in theology. In 1678, Coronelli was commissioned to make a set of terrestrial and celestial globes for Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma. Shortly afterwards the Duke made Coronelli his theologian. In 1681, Coronelli also constructed a pair of globes for Louis XIV. In 1684 he founded the very first geographical society Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti, and in 1685 became Cosmographer of the Republic of Venice. Between 1690 and 1701 Coronelli published the Atlante Veneto series of maps and charts. He later published Biblioteca Universale Sacro-Profana one of the first encyclopedias. Captain Samuel Gurney Cresswell (1827-1867), was a Royal Navy officer. He was technically the first naval officer to cross the entire Northwest Passage. Robert McClure was in charge of the expedition but Cresswell reached England first. Olfert Dapper (1636 - 1689) was a Dutch physician and writer. Despite never travelling outside of the Netherlands, Dapper was a writer of world history and geography. Theodorus de Bry (1528 – 27 March 1598) was an engraver, goldsmith, editor and publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. Pierre Duflos (1742-1816) was a French artist and engraver, the son of Nicholas-Simon Duflos and nephew of Claude-Augustin Duflos, also engravers. He is best known for his engravings of New World costumes and topography, which appeared in numerous French travel books and accounts of voyages. Jean-Michel Moreau (26th March 1741 - 30th November 1814) was a French draughtsman, artist, and engraver, particular known for his work as a reproductive engraver of Old Master and French baroque painters. He provided plates for Diderot’s Encyclopedie, as well as for the works of Boucher, Gravelot, and Cochin. Despite the turbulent political times in which he lived, Moreau flourished under both Royal and Revolutionary patronage. Despite his sympathies with the Revolutionary cause, he continued his work under the Bourbon restoration, gaining a royal appointment under Louis XVIII.
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Georges-Jaques Gatine (c. 1773-1841) was a French engraver, who produced caricatures and published several historical costume and fashion books, such as Costumes de femmes du pays de Caux et de plusieurs autres parties de l’ancienne province de Normandie and Costumes orientaux inédits. He did some commissions for the Journal des dames et des modes and worked closely together with Louis-Marie Lante (c. 1789-1871) on projects such as the Galerie Française de Femmes célèbres par leurs talents, which was published over many years in multiple volumes. John Greenwood (1727 - 1792) was a Portrait and landscape painter, mezzotinter and auctioneer. He was born in Boston, America in 1727, died in Margate in 1792. He apprenticed to Surinam in 1752-7, and moved to Amsterdam 1758 where trained as mezzotinter under Elgersma. He travelled to London via Paris in 1763 and remained in England until his death. Greenwood exhibited at the SA 1764-76 and from c.1773 he worked primarily as an auctioneer rather than printmaker, becoming one of the principal London dealers in old master paintings. Johann Jakob Haid (1704 - 1767) was German painter, publisher and engraver. He trained in Augsburg where he is likely to have taught enamel in 1745. The father of Johann Elias Haid, he is also known to have founded a large publishing house. Dr. Edward Hodges Cree (1814-1901) was a British Navy surgeon, whose extensive journals, now in the collection of the Royal Museums Greenwich, are an invaluable first-hand account of British naval life in the nineteenth century. Between 1837 and 1861, Hodges Cree travelled extensively on a dozen different Royal Navy vessels. His accounts of events in the Far East are particularly enlightening, and he was an eye witness to the First Opium War and conflicts with the pirates of the South China Sea. The end of his career with the Navy coincided with the Crimean War, and he was present at the Fall of Sebastopol in 1855. Aside from his commentaries, Hodges Cree was also a prolific artist, and his journals preserve over fifteen hundred original illustrations. William Hogarth (1697 - 1764) was born in London, the son of an unsuccessful schoolmaster and writer from Westmoreland. After apprenticeship to a goldsmith, he began to produce his own engraved designs in about 1710. He later took up oil painting, starting with small portrait groups called conversation pieces. 92
He went on to create a series of paintings satirising contemporary customs, but based on earlier Italian prints, of which the first was The Harlot’s Progress (1731), and perhaps the most famous The Rake’s Progress. His engravings were so plagiarised that he lobbied for the Copyright Act of 1735, commonly referred to as ‘Hogarth’s Act,’ as a protection for writers and artists. During the 1730s Hogarth also developed into an original painter of life-sized portraits, and created the first of several history paintings in the grand manner. William Holl (1807- 1871) was an English artist, portrait and figure engraver. Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) left his native Prague in 1627. He spent several years travelling and working in Germany before his patron, the Earl of Arundel, brought him to London in 1636. During the civil wars, Hollar fought on the Royalist side, after which he spent the years 1644-52 in Antwerp. Hollar’s views of London form an important record of the city before the Great Fire of 1666. He was prolific and engraved a wide range of subjects, producing nearly 2,800 prints, numerous watercolours, and many drawings. Jodocus Hondius (14th October 1563 - 12th February 1612) was a Dutch Flemish cartographer, engraver, and publisher. Hondius is most famous for reviving the primacy of the work of Gerard Mercator, through the publication of his Atlas, and the smaller Atlas Minor, in the early seventeenth century, at a time when cartography was largely dominated by Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The Mercator-Hondius Atlas was composed of maps pulled from plates Hondius had purchased from Mercator’s grandson, as well as thirty-six new plates Hondius commissioned, and in many cases engraved, himself. He is also believed to have been the chief engraver of the plates for John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. Following his death, he was succeeded by his sons, Jodocus the Younger and Henricus, as well as his son in law Jan Jansson Jacob, or Jacobus, Houbraken (1698-1780) was a Dutch portrait engraver, and dealer and collector of Rembrandt’s etchings. Born in Dordrecht, he was the son of the artist Arnold Houbraken. In 1707 he moved to Amsterdam, where he assisted his father on a book of the lives of the Dutch Golden Age artists, entitled De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718-1721).
Between 1743 and 1752, Houbraken worked with George Vertue on Thomas Birch’s Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain. He also engraved the portraits for Jan van Gool’s Nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders (1750-51). Between 1752 and 1759, he worked on Jan Wagenaar’s Vaderlandsche historie, which was published by Isaac Tirion. Nicolas de Larmessin II (1638-1694) was a French artist, printmaker and publisher. He is best known for engraving a series of almanacs and a series of portraits, such as his portrait of Anne of Austria (1683). John Lodge (fl. 1754-1796) was a British print and mapmaker, trained by Thomas Jefferys (..) and active in London. He worked almost exclusively on commissions, producing individual maps for a variety of historical and geographical books, travel accounts, as well as magazines and periodicals. His maps are clear and finely engraved, with subtle decorations. He is not to be confused with his son, John Lodge the younger, who would become a printmaker in his own right, after studying with his father in 1785. Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594) originally a student of philosophy was one of the most renowned cosmographers and geographers of the 16th century, as well as an accomplished scientific instrument maker. He is most famous for introducing Mercators Projection, a system which allowed navigators to plot the same constant compass bearing on a flat map. His first maps were published in 1537 (Palestine), and 1538 (a map of the world), although his main occupation at this time was globe-making. He later moved to Duisburg, in Germany, where he produced his outstanding wall maps of Europe and of Britain. In 1569 he published his masterpiece, the twentyone-sheet map of the world, constructed on Mercator’s projection. His Atlas, sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi, was completed by his son Rumold and published in 1595. After Rumold’s death in 1599, the plates for the atlas were published by Gerard Jr. Following his death in 1604, the printing stock was bought at auction by Jodocus Hondius, and re-issued well into the seventeenth century. Matthäus Merian the Elder (22 September 1593 - 19 June 1650) was a Swiss engraver born in Basel. Beginning his career in Zürich where he learned the art of copperplate engraving, Merian went on to study and work in various cities throughout France. In 1615, Merian returned to Basel.
His return to Basel, however, was short lived, moving to Frankfurt the following year to work for the publisher Johann Theodor de Bry. Merian later married de Bry’s daughter. He was also the father of Maria Sibylla Merian, one of the greatest natural history artists of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Herman Moll (c.1654-1732) was born in Germany and came to England in the 1670s. He worked as an independent cartographer and geographer, and traded as a map publisher and seller for two years, and then worked for other publishers. Moll established his own business and eventually dominated the early eighteenth century map trade. He produced many maps and atlases of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. His county maps were all boldly engraved in a heavy style. Moll was also an active member in academic and intellectual circles, being a close associate of Daniel Defoe, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, and, most importantly for his cartographic career, the pre-eminent English explorer of the era, William Dampier. Pieter Mortier (1661–1711) was an 18th-century mapmaker and engraver from the Northern Netherlands. Mortier was born in Leiden. According to Houbraken, David van der Plas worked with him on etchings for Bybelsche Tafereelen (Bible stories), published in Amsterdam in 1700. He was the father of Cornelis Mortier (1699-1783), who in partnership with Johannes Covens I (16971774) began the map publishing company Covens & Mortier (1721-1866). He travelled to Paris in 16811685 and won the privilege in 1690 of publishing maps and atlases by French publishers in Amsterdam. He used this privilege to win a similar set of privileges for printing an “illustrated print bible” in 1700. He died in Amsterdam. Sebastian Münster (20th January 1488 - 26th May 1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and theologian. A gifted scholar of Hebraic, Münster originally joined the Franciscans, but left the order in favour of the Lutheran Church. He was appointed to the University of Basel in 1529, and published a number of works in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. His most celebrated works are his Latin edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia in 1540, and the Cosmographia in 1544. The Cosmographia was the earliest German description of the world, an ambitious work of 6 volumes published in numerous editions in German, Latin, French, Italian, and Czech.
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John Ogilby (1600-1676) was a Scottish cartographer and publisher. Ogilby is perhaps best known for his series of road-maps entitled the “Britannia”, which was the first road-atlas of any country, published in 1675. Abraham Ortelius (1527 -1598) was a Flemish cartographer, cosmographer, geographer and publisher and a contemporary of Gerard Mercator, with whom he travelled through Italy and France. Although it is Mercator who first used the word “Atlas” as a name for a collection of maps, it is Ortelius who is remembered as the creator of the first modern atlas. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was the first systematically collated set of maps by different map makers in a uniform format. Three Latin editions as well as a Dutch, French and German edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum were published by 1572 and a further 25 editions printed before Ortelius’ death in 1598. Several more were subsequently printed until around 1612. Ortelius is said to have been the first person to pose the question of the continents once being a single land mass before separating into their current positions. Herman Padtbrugge (1656-1686) was an engraver who mainly produced naval scenes for publications such as “Leeven en Daaden der Doorluchtigste Zee-helden” (Heroes of the Sea, their lives and deeds) and “De Amerikaanse Zee-rovers” (The Buccaneers of America). He was the son of printmaker Dionysius Padtbrugge, and was active in Amsterdam and Stockholm. Johannes Isacius Pontanus (1571–1639) was born when his parents had fled Haarlem to go to Denmark. He later adopted his academic name Pontanus (“of the sea”) because he would have been born at sea, when his parents were still on their way to Denmark. Shortly after his birth, his father Isaach Pietersz. was appointed by the Danish King Frederik II to return to the Netherlands and work as an agent. The family settled in Amsterdam, were Pontanus would spent most of his childhood. He would go on to study in Utrecht and Leiden and was promoted to doctor of medicine in Basel in 1601. He traveled often to Denmark and also visited Germany, Italy and France. He became a professor at the Gymnasium Illustre in Gelderland in 1604 and was appointed as the Royal Danish historian by King Christian IV. He wrote a history of Amsterdam in 1611, of Denmark from 1618 to 1631 and of the States of Gelderland in 1639 as well as several shorter works of history. He was married to Anneken van Heede with whom he had nine children.
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Tommaso Porcacchi (1530-1585) was an Italian humanist, geographer, translator, and author, chiefly remembered for his atlas, L’isole più famose del mondo descritte da Thomaso Porcacchi da Castiglione arretino e intagliate da Girolamo Porro padouano con l’aggiunta di molte isole. As a young man, he studied in Florence under the patronage of Duke Cosimo I. In 1559, he moved to Venice, translating works from Latin and Greek into Italian, on behalf of publishers including Ludovico Domenichi and Giolito de Ferrari. His treatise on the islands of the world included some of the very earliest maps and plans of the new world, including North America, Mexico, and Temistitan, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Girolamo Porro (c. 1520-1604) was an Italian engraver active in Venice and his native Padua, working predominantly as a map engraver for Tommaso Porcacchi, and Girolamo Ruscelli. Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) was an Italian geographer, translator, author, and publisher. He is best known for the large series of travellers’ accounts that he compiled, translated, and published as the Delle Navigationi e Viaggi. The first volumes appeared during the 1550s, and were republished, added to, and translated into other languages throughout the second half of the sixteenth century. Simon François Ravenet I (1706 - 1774) was a French engraver, printmaker, and publisher. Born in Paris, Ravenet went on to study under Jacques-Philippe Le Bas, and was brought to London by Hogarth in 1743 to work on the “Marriage à la Mode” series. He remained in Britain for the rest of his career, creating prints for Hogarth and other publishers, notably working with John Boydell on “Collection of Prints, Engraved from the most Capital Paintings in England”, published between 1763 and 1773. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) led the eighteenthcentury art world as first President of the Royal Academy and Britain’s leading portrait painter. In his attempt to raise the status of portraiture, he created the Grand Manner which borrowed from classical antiquity and the Old Masters to fill his portraits with moral and heroic symbolism. An incredible socialite, social climber and self-promoter, Reynolds used his contacts to advance himself. Appointed President of the newly established Royal Academy in 1768, his annual lectures - or ‘Discourses on Art’ - had a lasting impact on the contemporary theory of art and practice.
Robert Sayer (1725-1794) was a prolific English print and map seller, publisher, and engraver. Through his brother’s wife, he became the manager of the printing house of John Overton, gradually taking over the business, with a concentration on atlases, maritime charts, cartography, and accounts of travel, exploration, and navigation. Sayer is also remembered for his engravings after paintings by Johan Zoffany, and the pair grew to be lifelong friends. Sayer was succeeded on his death by Laurie and Whittle. Heinrich Scherer (1628-1704) was a German cartographer, geographer, engraver, and publisher. A Professor of mathematics at Munich University, Scherer was also a devout Catholic, a facet of his life that is immediately apparent in his published works. His most famous publication was the Atlas Novus, an eight volume atlas produced between 1698 and 1710, which featured 187 plates depicting all of the known world, with particular reference to the activity of the Jesuit Order and the spread of Christianity around the world. Jacobus Schynvoet (fl. 1680 - 1720) was a Dutch printmaker and engraver who worked in Amsterdam and London. William Simpson (1823-1899) was a British draughtsman, early lithographer, watercolour painter, journalist and antiquarian. He covered the Crimean war on behalf of Colnaghi’s but later joined the ‘Illustrated London News’. He covered the Abyssinian campaign (1868), Franco-Prussian war (1870-71), Modoc war (1873) and Second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-1880).
Lambert van den Bosch alias V.D.B. (1610-1698) was a Dutch poet and author of books on the history of the Netherlands, such as “Zuydt-Hollantsche Thessalia” published in 1633 and “Historien onses tyds” from 1685. Crispijn van de Passe the Elder, or de Passe (c.1564, Arnemuiden - 1637, Utrecht) was a Dutch publisher and engraver and founder of a dynasty of engravers. Pieter van der Aa (1659 – 1733) was a Dutch publisher, best known for preparing maps and atlases. Despite producing his own work, van der Aa is also known for his production of pirated editions of illustrated publications and foreign bestsellers. Beginning his career as a Latin trade publisher in Lieden in 1683, van der Aa’s ambition was to one day become the most famous printer in the city. In 1715, van der Aa was appointed the head printer for Leiden and its university. Robert Vaughan (c. 1600 - c. 1663) was a British engraver of Welsh origins, and was active in London from 1622. Vaughan was a Royalist in the Civil War, and in 1651, he was indicted for engraving a portrait of Charles II. He was later acquitted due to a technicality as it could not be proven that the print had ever been distributed.
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