| Antique Maps of the World |
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| Britannia instructing Europe, Asia, Africa and America in the Science of Geography. Frontispiece to Kelly's System of Geography. Copper plate engraving, Published by Thomas Kelly , 1817. Size 15 x 121 cm, condition good. Price £40.00 /$80.00. Click for info |
The world is the assemblage of parts which compose the universe.
The earth is spherical, but most maps are flat.
Hanging an antique map of the world on your wall says something about you. It says that you understand your place on this great globe of ours, and you understand your place within the folds of time. An antique world map says you are centred, self-aware, confident. Oh, and it's interesting and looks good too!
The first known attempts to map the world took place in 25 B.C. when Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of the Hellenic world. The geographical heritage of the human race was to rest for more than 1200 years in the work of 2 men, Strabo and Claudius Ptolemy. The one furnishing the key to the past, and the other a pattern for the future.
- Strabo - the human approach. Concentrated on mapping places people lived in the habitable world;
- Ptolemy - the scientific approach. Figured out how to represent spherical proportions on his flat map. His meridians were straight, the North Pole in the centre, and he represented the parallels as arcs of circles.
Strabo, who had travelled extensively in the then known world, visited the Great Library of Alexandria, and in the following 5 years, wrote an 18-volume treatise on Geography. According to Strabo all those who undertake the study of the " science of geography ... must look to the vault of heaven" and study astronomy, geometry and meteorology "since it unites terrestrial and celestial phenomena, "as heaven is high above the earth."
Nothing is known about Ptolemy except that he flourished about 150 A.D. He had a remarkable gift of exposition and although he wrote about astrology, music, optics and mathematics, his greatest work is "Syntaxis", also known as Almagest and his Geographia. He recognised the possibility of Terra Incognita, and left the matter open to further investigation. Many of the conventional signs he used, are still being used today.
The most important innovator in World map projections after Strabo and Ptolemy's times was Gerard Mercator, who published his World Map in 1569.
The distances of South - North, and North -South of the equator were increased, allowing the expansion to the same width as the equator, thus enabling navigators to plot a straight line on the map.
At the end of the 17th Century there a new type of world map appears, known as the "Thematic map of the World". This is used to shows the distribution of particular phenomena like ocean currents, or wind systems.
In the early years of the 19th Century thematic mapping became a major activity in, for instance, the natural sciences.
Selected antique world maps currently in stock
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Mappe Monde. Showing California as an Island, and only the West Coast of Australia. P.Claude Buffier, Copperplate map, hand coloured, 1773. Size 17 x 14 cm
Price £180.00 /$360.00
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Mappe Monde. Copper plate map with contemporary colour,circa 1800. Size 42 x 23 cm
Price £195.00 /$390.00
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La Sphere Artificielle ou Armilaire Oblique. Nicolas De Fer, Copper plate engraving, Hand coloured, showing the Sun, the Moon and different Systems of Geography. Engraved by P. Starckman, 1716. Size 41 x 49 cm. Page size 61 x 41.5cm
Price £280.00 /$560.00
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The Newly improved Armillary or Artificial Sphere. Copper plate engraving, circa 1800. Size 18 x 24 cm.
Price £60.00 /$120.00
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Mappe Monde. Large World Map in Two Hemispheres. Adrian Hubert Brue, dedicated to Baron Cuvier, outline colour, published by Cary in London, Betaille in Milan, Artaria in Vienna, and Sorbonne in Paris, June 1820, Augmented in 1821.
Size 87.5 x 52 cm plus 87.5 x 52 cm
£475.00 / $950.00 for Two hemispheres(4 sections)
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Mappe Monde. Large World Map in Two Hemispheres. Adrian Hubert Brue, dedicated to Baron Cuvier, outline colour, published by Cary in London, Betaille in Milan, Artaria in Vienna, and Sorbonne in Paris, June 1820, Augmented in 1821.
Size 87.5 x 52 cm plus 87.5 x 52 cm
£475.00 / $950.00 for Two hemispheres(4 sections)
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Orbis Veteribus Notus, The World Known to the Antients. Dedicated to Louis Phillipe , by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville. Big, Copper plate map, hand coloured, corrected by d'Anville and with names of places as they were in antient times.Published as the Act directs in 1813. Size 75 x 55 cm. Very big.
Price £160.00 /$320.00
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Ptolemy's Map of the World, compared with the actual positions, after H.Kiepert, from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Coloured map, engraved by A.K.Johnston circa 1875. Size 38 x 24 cm.
Price £48.00 /$96.00
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Astronomy fig.26. The Principle fixed Stars in the North Hemisphere Delineated on the Plane of the Equator. Copper plate engraving by A.Bell circa 1800.
Size 19x 24cm
£58.00 / $116.00
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Planetary Machines. Cometarium by W.Jones. J Farey, Copper plate engraving from an Encyclpedia, engraved by W.Lowry, published by Longman, Hurst, Orme and Brown in 1812. Size 20 x 27 cm
Price £48.00 /$96.00
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A General Map of the Roman Empire Shewing the Situation of all its Provinces and the Seats of the Barbarious Nations on their Frontiers. Copperplate map circa 1770. Size 50 x 26 cm.
Price £48.00 /$96.00
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Geographical and Historical Map of the Incursions of the Barbarians. Copper plate map, contemporary colour, from Lavoisne's Atlas, published by J.Barfield 1828 .
Size 52 x 42 cm
£78.00 / $156.00
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Physical Geography, Coloured steel(?) engraving, showing hight of Mountains, and lenghts of rivers, engraved by Geo. Aikman circa 1860.
Size 36 x 25 cm
£48.00 / $96.00
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Western and Eastern Hemisphere. With separate small Hemispheres showing greatest amount of water, and greatest amount of land, and River Systems of the world, 1895. Size 50 x 38 cm.
Price £65.00 /$130.00
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Map of the World from the Best Authorities. Copper engraved map,hand coloured, repaired. Showing Tasmania joined to Australia,published by Bungay, Suffolk, 1807.
Size 37 x 19 cm
£40.00 / $80.00
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Solar System, showing Planets, Comets, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, Movement of the Earth round the sun. The Moon. Inset pictures of Landscape, Craters, View of Posidonius, and estimated Superficial Areas with names. Coloured map, published 1895.
Size 22.5 x 38 cm
£65.00 / $130.00
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Celestial map of the stars, hand-coloured steel engraving, published by William Mackenzie circa 1860.
Size 40 x 23 cm
£180.00 / $360.00
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Illustrations of the Changes in the formation of the World. The Sacred Theory of the Earth, by Bishop Burnett. Copper plate engraving, published by T.Kinnersley, 1816.
Size 19.5 x 24 cm
£40.00 / $80.00
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Illustrations of the Changes in the formation of the World,Plate X. The Sacred Theory of the Earth, by Bishop Burnett. Copper plate engraving, published by T.Kinnersley, 1816.
Size 19.5 x 23 cm
£40.00 / $80.00
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Illustrationns of the Glacier Systems of Alps and of Glacial Phenomena in General. From the Surveys and Sketches of Professor Forbes, The Maps of Raymond, Weriss, Charpentier. Tinted map by A.K.Johnston, 1848.
Size 58 x 49 cm
£90.00 / $180.00
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Verbreitung Der Juden im Deutschen Reich. Spread of Jews in Germany. Coloured map from Meyers' Lexicon published by Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig, c1900.
Size 27 x 22 cm
£28.00 / $56.00
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The World Climate, J. Bartholomew. Coloured map,showing temperature, rainfall and winds from The Times Survey Atlas, dated 1922. Note: This item is less than 100 years old!
Size 54 x 41 cm
£60.00 / $120.00
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Polar Regions. Unexplored Regions. W.and A.K. Johnston, Ninth Edition Encyclopedia Britannica 1875-1885.
Size 37 x 25 cm
£48.00 / $96.00
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The World showing Postal Delivery from London in October 1906. Mollweides' Equal Area Projection, that is to say that a square inch on any part of the Map represents the same number of square miles. Aprox 1,400,000 square miles to the inch. Coloured map showing number of days for delivery. Places with no Postal Service are uncoloured. Published by W. & A.K. Johnston. Size 50 x 31 cm.
Price £60.00 /$120.00
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Language Map of The World showing present Distribution of Languages, Coloured map, undated assumed c1900.
Size 31 x 23.5 cm
32.00 / $64.00
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