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The private book collection of Kenneth B. Nebenzahl went on the block recently at Christie’s Auction House in New York with a sale total (hammer price + buyer’s premium) of $11,663,937 US. The Chicago rare-book dealer’s collection, noted for its early Americana and travel books, also featured some of the finest examples of early cartography anywhere: the most important illustrated, Renaissance travel book of the Eastern Mediterranean; several manuscript and printed atlases; and a first edition copy of Apianus’ first printed work, Isagoge in Typum Cosmographicum seu Mappam Mundi. My personal favorite is the manuscript portolan atlas by Battista Agnese produced on vellum in the early 1540s. (See esp. lots 155 - 165.)

Nebenzahl has been a prolific author on cartography and a strong supporter of Chicago’s Newberry Library. He and his wife Jossy are patrons of the Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography at the library’s Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to chat or listen to me babble. It was great to see so many faces from last year and a bit surprising that so many came with items for sale. My special thanks go to Bernie for once again working so hard to give us a hassle-free show, as well as all the other volunteers from Wild Rose.

After a very busy first day, Saturday was a bit slower and I got a chance to look around.

A Hit. I picked up a 1934 London Underground map on the hope that it was an early edition. Henry Charles (Harry) Beck, an engineering draughtsman with London Transport (LT), first designed his revolutionary schematic plan while laid off as part of an “economy drive” in 1931. Although London Transport had begun a consolidation of services using modernist design as a key element, Beck’s map was considered “too revolutionary” when first presented. In January 1933, LT relented and issued 500 copies of Beck’s new map. The public loved them and LT issued six more editions that year. Mine is the second edition for 1934 with the extra space. Given the ephemeral nature of these maps, I expect that mine, though not first edition, is still somewhat rare. 

Beck received little for his efforts despite continuing to refine his design throughout his life. He was paid fi9 x 6"ve guineas (£5.25) and his name was tucked away in the bottom left corner of the map. Credit for the map’s clarity and simplicity initially went to LT’s Chief Executive, Frank Pick, who had led the consolidation and given the system its distinctive look. Over the last 20 years Beck has begun to be recognized for his accomplishment and in 2001 Transport for London began crediting him with the original idea for what is today considered one of Britain’s greatest designs of the 20^th century.¹

A Miss. A hunch I did not act on was a small religious print in a frame marked as “18^th C.” I thought it showed the D'ohbaptism of the Infant with members of the Jesuits adoring. My Latin is pretty bad, so the title, 'LITANIAE DOM: NOSTRI IESU.', didn’t help much. What intrigued me was the credit on the bottom: 'Hieronymus Wierx fecit et excudit'. The name seemed to ring a bell and I was pretty sure that bell had been cast well before the 1700s. Once home I realized I was right about the date but wrong about the subject matter. I really have to get a laptop.

Thanks again, one and all. Hope to see you next year, if not sooner.

JHMaps will be exhibiting at the 2012 Wild Rose Antique Collectors’ Show. The show is at Hall E of the Edmonton Expo Centre and I’ll be in Booth 439, Row D. Please join us Friday, April 6^th between 9a.m. and 5p.m. or Saturday, April 7^th between 10a.m. and 5p.m.

Featured maps for this show include a set of 1920s prairie homestead maps produced by the Canadian government, one of the earliest separately issued maps of Manitoba, and a landmark map of the Alaska Highway produced by local map maker, Gordon Mundy.

As always, I hope someone will bring in something cool to show off or sell.

A full English translation of Mercator’s 1595 atlas is online at the New York Society Library. Featured is the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection’s (Library of Congress) coloured, folio edition of the landmark atlas, supported by a description and collation of the book, a biography of Mercator, translator’s notes, and an article about colour in early maps.

Cover-to-cover thumbnails link to hi-res images, but you’ll notice they take * forever * to load. (20 minutes) Once they have, you can then flip through the pages without further delays.

This is the Octavo CD-ROM edition I was coveting when first published in 2000.

Museum of Russian IconsThe Worchester News Telegram reports an exhibition of Russian maps from the collection of Denis Khotimsky at the Museum of Russian Icons (Clinton, MA), February 28 - May 26, 2012. A short (2:41) news video runs from the museum's page.

New issues of two map-related journals are out.

The Portolan, first published in 1984 by the Washington Map Society,  keeps members abreast of upcoming events and new books. Despite their modest mandate “to provide information of specific interest to our membership,” the journal publishes original research on maps from around the world. In the Fall 2011 issue: maps in children’s books, sea monsters, George Washington, Elizabeth Taylor, Texas, and the Museo Nacional de la Cartografía, México. Far ranging interests indeed.

e-Perimetron is a peer-reviewed quarterly whose aim is “to couple issues on history of cartography and maps with a variety of possibilities offered by the new digital information and communication technologies.” Many of the articles deal with G.I.S. and map warping... I think.

The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center has a new home at the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building. The new space hosts the second largest map collection in any U.S. public library (200,000+ maps, 5,000+ atlases, and a portion of Leventhal’s private collection), a 1775 Boston map reproduced in stained glass,  and a three-foot diameter globe.

Online:

A discussion of the odometers used by two U.S. Founding Fathers led to a couple of websites about their scientific instruments. Monticello.org has pages on several of Jefferson’s instruments, including an odometer, while Ben Franklin’s are best found by scrolling to the bottom of ‘Object Types’ on the Search page of BenFranklin300.org.

A post by Michael Zeiler is a good excuse to mention his year-old site dedicated to current and historical maps of solar eclipses. Eclipse-maps.com also examines the transits of Venus.

Michael Buehler of Boston Rare Maps was the guest curator of the Harvard Map Collection’s, “Toward a National Cartography: American Mapmaking, 1782-1800.” His new online gallery of 22 maps, atlases, and books recreates that exhibit and demonstrates the post-Colonial emergence of a uniquely American cartography, “different in goals, subject matter, methods and aesthetics from [...] British [colonial] maps.”

Added bonus! I also see an online exhibition by the Harvard Map Collection that may not have made the list. Going for Baroque: The Iconography of the Ornamental Map examines how the “richly nuanced symbols, analogies, and coded commentaries” within“decorative cartographic devices - cartouches, vignettes, figural borders, title pages, and frontispieces - could provide narrative underpinnings for the geospatial content of maps.”

New Books:

Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe Susan Dackerman, ed. Based on the current Harvard exhibition featuring “a rich display of prints, books, maps, and scientific instruments exploring the role of celebrated artists in the scientific inquiries of the 16th century,” this collection of essays and reproductions appears to be more than ‘just’ a catalogue.

The American Librarian’s Association has released an interesting title: Guide to Security Considerations and Practices for Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collection Libraries. While the intended audience is probably quite narrow, I expect this would hold some interest for map dealers as well as some collectors. Supplemented with several appendices, including biographies of recent thieves and a survey of the thousands of books stolen by Stephen Blumberg, “the key focus of this volume is on the prevention of theft of rare materials.”

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, by Ken Jennings to mixed reviews.

Great Railway Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden (Particular Books)

John Horrigan Antique Maps is ecstatic to announce our participation in this year's Pure Speculation Festival. I’ll be in Booth 14 with a somewhat limited range of maps (mostly local & astronomical stuff) so I can focus on the disposal of my collection of SF, Fantasy, and Children’s books. As always, I hope somebody will pop by with a cool map or globe to show off, ask about, or sell. We invite you to embrace your Inner Geek and join us at the Robbins Health Centre.

MapHist is the academic mailing list for map historians, collectors, and enthusiasts. Following the demise of The Map Room blog, it occurs to me that some might enjoy hearing about the links without having to sift through some of the more obtuse discussions. This, then, is the first instalment of “Recently on MapHist” a monthly recap of new websites, books, etc. (more)

Page 6b - The MapThis summer marks the 71^st anniversary of the Banff - Jasper Highway's opening . Begun as a Depression-era social project, workers completed the highway in 1940, just as the fighting war was starting up in Europe. Despite the war, less than a year later, urban and rural businesses banded together to promote the new route with a travel guide and map. Seeing Alberta - 1941 - [is a] Descriptive Travel Guide to Alberta’s Park - to - Park Route, which includes over 100 ads and an interesting racial undertone. (more)

The Alberta Land Surveyors' Association (ALSA) has placed a large copy of Driscoll and Knight's 1912, Map of the City of Edmonton, Province of Alberta, on public display in their Edmonton offices.  (more...)

The Nelson Star reports on the purchase of a rare copy of Perry's Mining Map of the Southern Dist., West Kootenay. (Rand, McNally & Co., 1893) Described by dealer Barry Lawrence Ruderman as, "one of the earliest obtainable printed maps to focus on the Kootenay mining regions," and only the fifth known copy, the 40 x 26" full-colour map will become part of Yale's Western Americana Collection.

Thanks to everyone at GeoAlberta 2011 for a wonderful two days earlier this month. The conference organizers (GeoEdmonton, Alberta Geomatics Group, URISA, and GITA) generously invited me to show antique maps as part of this year’s “From Drafting to Dreaming” theme. When I told DC I still had my high school drafting equipment, he asked me to bring those ‘antiques’ along as well. (more)

A very heartfelt (if somewhat belated) thank you to everyone who stopped by my booth at this year’s Wildrose Antique Sale. It was nice to see the familiar faces from last year and I hope to see everyone again soon. Two items had their own special ‘Wow’ factor, one for the buyers, one for me. (more)

The 36^th annual Wild Rose Antique Collectors’ Show and Sale is on Good Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23 at the Edmonton Expo Centre. We’ll be in Hall E (click thumbnail) and I have a booth near the back (Row G, #735). 

Drop by, say hello, and browse to your heart’s delight. Feel free to bring along any old maps you may want to sell, know more about, or simply show off. I’m always on the hunt for interesting maps of the prairies, early city maps, pre-1850s maps, unusual maps, military maps, pre-WWII globes, atlases, reference books...