Asia

  Extremely rare – the foundational modern map of Burma, being the first realistic general map of the country, as well as a monument of early lithography in India; the very large format work was published in Calcutta by the Asiatic Lithographic Press during the height of the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-6), it served as an invaluable strategic aid for…

  Lithograph with original colour: 18 x 23 cm (7 x 9 inches) (soft fold, slightly stained in the upper margin).

  The first wall map of Azerbaijan SSR, made in 1925 by a pioneer of Azerbaijani map-making İbrahim Ağa Vəkilov   Colour lithography, printed on four sheets and originally mounted on linen, 100 x 135 cm (39.8 x 53.1 inches) (small tears, folds and holes with tiny loss of material, light staining).  

OBERKOMMANDO DER KRIEGSMARINE (NAZI GERMAN NAVY HIGH COMMAND). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer (Andrews & Steiner), August 27, 1942. Photolithograph on thick paper, with the h Photolithograph on thick paper, with the handstamps of the ‘Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven Kartengruppe’ as well as classification handstamps and a pastedown label regarding the accuracy of the chart (Very Good, overall clean and bright, some wear along…

  A rare, stellar and very large format bilingual (Chinese, French) map of China, made by Stanislas Chevalier, the polymath Jesuit-scientist who was famously the father of meteorology in China, beautifully colour lithographed at the Imprimerie Hong-pao-tchai, a printing house located at Zi-Ka-Wei, the missionary education-science centre in the Xuhui District of Shanghai, with Chinese-style blue silk endpapers, the map is…

[Complete Map of Various Foreign Countries’ Temporarily Divided Territory Boundaries within the City of Beijing.] [China, likely Beijing, no publisher, 1900].   A very rare, attractive and intriguing map, capturing Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion (1899 - 1901), when ‘Zongli Yamen’ (Legation Quarter) of the Old City was besieged by ultra-nationalist rebels, only for the barricade to be lifted by…

  Very Rare – the first issue of the first large-format printed sea chart of the South Coast of Hainan, based on a reconnaissance survey conducted by John Haldane of the British East India Company, from Sayer & Bennett’s magnificent ‘The East-India Pilot, or Oriental Navigator’.

Adolf HAUPT (fl. 1900 – 1933). Tsingdao [Qingdao]: Printed at the Catholic Mission Press, 1927. 8° (19 x 11.5 cm): [13 pp. advertisements, title, preliminaries], 1-48 pp., [16 pp. advertisements on coloured paper], 49-156 pp. (with 82 photographic images imbedded within text), [2 pp.], plus 2 large folding colour lithographed maps on thick paper, bound in original printed boards with…

  One of the finest general maps of China produced during the fin de siècle period, a large format, highly detailed work produced as part of map sequence for the China Inland Mission (CIM) by the world leading firm of Edward Stanford, and the first issue to be predicated upon the revolutionary cartography of the Russian sinologist Emil Bretschneider, providing…

  A very rare, large-format separately issued map of the Portuguese Territory of Goa, India; being the finest general map of the colony issued during the second half of the 19th Century, with the present edition being the first major map to depict the entire completed line of the Mormugao Railway, Goa’s first railroad; predicated upon the stellar surveys of…

  Extremely Rare – a pair of large-format maps respectively depicting Northern and Southern India, featuring the ecclesiastical divisions of the Roman Catholic on the subcontinent, prepared for the Vatican’s State Secretariat by Girolamo Petri, issued within his monumental atlas, ‘L’Orbe Cattolico ossia Atlante Geografico Storico Ecclesiastico’.

  A rare large format Japanese map of India and Burma, ‘pirated’ from a British map by the venerable bookseller Maruzen, issued during the height of World War II, as Japan conquered Burma and before its (ultimately ill-fated) invasion of India during ‘Operation U-Go’ (1944).   Colour print, folding into original printed paper sleeve (Very Good, some toning along old…

  A seemingly unique engineer’s planning map of the Cirebon-Kroya Railway, a vital link that traversed the midriff of Java, connecting the north coast and south coast rail networks, likely made in 1912-3, just before construction was commenced on the project, which was completed in 1917; the map is printed by an unusual blue-tinted photolithographic technique and features the proposed…

  Very Rare – the first broadly accurate British sea chart of the southwestern coast of Sumatra, a critical region home to the important British base of Benccoolon-Fort Marlborough (modern Bengkulu), published by William Herbert in 1758.

  Very Rare - the first broadly accurate British sea chart of the Straits of Sunda, but also extending to include West Java (including Jakarta) and southeastern Sumatra, published by William Herbert in 1758.

An unique and extraordinary artifact of the successful Dutch endeavours to gain colonial dominion over West Sumatra during the 1830s, in the wake of the Padri War (concluded 1837) and the 1832 intervention against the Aceh Sultanate, being an impressively detailed original manuscript itinerary map of West Sumatra, including it rugged Minangkabau Highlands, depicting a dense archipelago of villages and…

  A pair of attractive and richly composed original 19th century watercolour views of two of Batavia’s (Jakarta, Indonesia) most important colonial buildings, being the ‘Willemskerk’ and the Residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Dutch Army in the East Indies; executed by “D. Colleart” – a rare find, as very few original manuscript views of Batavia from the era survive.#…

  A unique and historically important artefact, being a highly detailed and beautifully coloured original manuscript map of Sendai, then the largest city in Japan north of Edo (Tokyo), and a major commercial centre of around 50,000 residents, built just across the river form the famous Aoba Castle, labelling all streeta, outlining all major cadastral lots and noting all key…

  [Map of the Fire of Tokyo. Edited by the Relief Information Bureau of the Tokyo Imperial University]   A very large and impressive map chronicling how the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) and the resulting inferno, that was the greatest urban fire to date, destroyed much of Tokyo, based upon analysis conducted by academics at the Tokyo Imperial University, it…

A seemingly unrecorded variant of an extremely rare, colossal ‘Headquarters Map’ of French Indochina (modern day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) that was the blueprint for the imminent French colonial control takeover of Laos; the map was made in the immediate wake of the Third Mission Pavie (1889-91), led by the brilliant eccentric diplomat-explorer August Pavie that secured the pathway for…

  A very rare wall map of the Federation of Malaya (today’s peninsular Malaysia) made only the year after its independence from Britain, an entirely bilingual work (Chinese-English) executed by a Chinese draftsman, Li Menphy, and published in Hong Kong for the benefit of Malaya’s large Chinese population and the many Hong Kongers who had strong connections to that country…

  First modern, separately printed geological map of Mount Fuji   Colour print on thin paper 95 x 75 cm (38.2 x 29.5inches) (slightly age-toned, soft folds, small holes on the crossings of the folds).  

  Colour lithography, 96 x 63 cm (37.9 x 24.8 inches), (minor staining, tears repaired with modern tape and partly age-toned).  

A unique pair of an Ottoman manuscript atlas and a map, made by a student of the Military Highschool in Bitola, in 1891, as a project for his final exams.

  A pictorial map of Hyogo in Japanese and English, made during the American occupation of Japan   Colour lithograph, 76 x 54 cm (30 x 21.3 inches), verso text in blue (soft folds slightly worn, with tiny tears and holes on crossings, minor staining).  

Lucien Florent Paul COFFYN (1810 - 1871). Manuscript, [Saigon, April-May 1862].   Manuscript, pen and ink and grisaille wash on paper, bearing three original manuscript signatures, being those of the author, draftsman and colonial governor, mounted upon a larger piece of 20th century paper (Good, wear along old folds with some minor loss at some fold vertices, some short closed tears…

Highly important and seemingly unrecorded – as best as we are aware the only complete printed cadastral masterplan of the International Settlement of Shanghai in its expanded (post-1899) form, thus including 5 separate maps, respectively showcasing the Central (The Bund), Northern (Hongkou) and Western Districts, while the Eastern District is covered by 2 of the maps; the plans were made…

A map from Umûm Vilayât-ı Şâhâneyi Hâvi Küçük Atlas - Umûmî Küçük Atlas (General Small Atlas)   Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches).

Chromolithograph. 10 x 13,5 cm (4 x 5.3 inches). Slightly stained, overall in a good condition.

  Exceedingly rare – one of only 2 known examples - the first publication of the earliest systematic trigonometrical survey of the south-western coast of Sri Lanka, a self-contained section of a four-part series of charts resulting from Lieutenants Frederick Thomas Powell and Richard Ethersey’s masterly survey of the ‘West Coast of Ceylon’, undertaken upon the orders of the East…

Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches). Minor staining, overall in a good condition.

  A fascinating account of the German economist and ethnographer Karl Theodor Stöpel’s tour of Taiwan which occurred just after the island was taken over by Japan, during which he witnessed the island rapid’s economic-political transition and the local Chinese’s rebellion against the new regime, as well as being one of the earliest scientific missions deep into the island’s interior,…

  A colossal monument of the cartography of Indochina, being the grand ‘Headquarters Map’ of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and eastern Siam commissioned by the French Government in anticipation of their bold designs of expansion in the region that led to the Tonkin Campaign (1883-6), the complete conquest of Vietnam; showcasing by far and away the most accurate and detailed general…