Caribbean

John Luffman’s grand map of Antigua, one of the cartographic monuments of the 18th century British West Indies; predicated upon the goldsmith-cartographer’s reconnaissance of the island conducted when it was still one of the world’s leading sugar-slave economies, as well as hosting a major Royal Navy base (then commanded by the future Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson); the map served as…

A grand format original manuscript that is one of the finest and most detailed maps of St. George’s, the capital of Grenada, from the slave-plantation era, the result of a collaboration between Captain William Elliott, James Langley and James Young of the Royal Engineers; drafted shortly after the Napoleonic Wars, when the Grenada lived under the spectre of a possible…

  A pair (2) of historically important original manuscript sepia views, depicting 1) the Great House and windmill of Perrins’s Estate, one of Jamaica’s leading sugar plantations, and 2) the St. Dorothy’s (or the ‘Tamarind Tree’) Church, established in 1681, which is today one of the oldest and most culturally significant churches in Jamaica; executed to an unusually high degree…

  Exceedingly rare – 1 of only 2 known examples – a colossal work which is by far and away the finest map of Trinidad from the Post-Emancipation Era, complied by colonial authorities from the best sources, including the regional and cadastral surveys of Jospeh Basanta, the island’s surveyor general, and the railway surveys of the esteemed engineer William Joseph…

  The extremely rare first edition of the first scientifically accurate survey of Tobago, made in the wake of France ceding the island to Britain upon the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63); created as part of the ‘Ceded Islands Surveys’ under the direction of John Byres; the map precisely depicts the topography and infrastructure of Tobago and carefully…

A great rarity of Cuban cartography, being a city plan of Santiago de Cuba, drafted and lithographed locally by Louis François Delmés, the French émigré portraitist and miniaturist who was the father of academic painting in eastern Cuba; the map, executed in the artist’s signature resplendent colour palette, portrays Cuba’s second city during the island’s last ‘sugar boom’, showcasing Santiago…

A stellar pair of original manuscript sea charts, on a single sheet, being surveys by James Langley, the Master of the ‘HMS Scamander’, showing 1) Gros Islet Bay, a critical fortified harbour near the northern point of St. Lucia that was chosen by the famed Admiral George Rodney a key base of the Royal Navy; and 2) Prince Rupert’s Bay…

An attractive large format sea chart of Charlotte Amalie Harbor, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, predicated upon detailed surveys made by Britain’s Royal Navy in 1851, but here updated to 1912, only five years before the Danish Virgin Islands were sold to the United States, featuring a wealth of details on the town and its environs including major public institutions, Jewish…

  A charming post war pictorial map of Barbados   Colour lithography, 63 x 50 cm (24.8 x 19.7 inches) (soft folds, minor staining, but overall in a good condition).