Maps and Prints

  Steel engraved playing card, overlaid in coloured stencil, blank on verso (Very Good, minor stainng verso, a small scratch and stain on the front), 97 x 65 mm (3.8 x 2.6 inches).  

Highly important – the charismatic and controversial former (and future) Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna’s official and most detailed defense of his leadership when he oversaw the cession of Texas (1836) and the total defeat of this armies during the Mexican-American War (1846-8); the superficially persuasive but ‘creative with the truth’ narrative was written while Santa Anna was…

  The rare Mexico City sheet from the famed ‘Carta de la Republica Mexicana’, the awesomely ambitious, but ultimately unfinished mega-project to map all of Mexico to a scale of 1:100 000, conducted by the Comisión Geográfico-Exploradora; importantly, this sheet was separately issued and is a complete publication in and of itself; one of the seminal maps of the Metropolitan…

CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE GOBIERNO DEL DISTRITO FEDERAL. Mexico City: Compañía Litográfica y Tipográfica, S.A., 1906.   Colour lithograph on thick paper, housed in original red cloth slipcase bearing gilt short title of ‘Plano de la Ciudad de México / 1906’ to front side (Good, clean and bright, some hairline tears entering image but archivally repaired from verso with no loss,…

  One of the early posters by the Polish graphic designer Roman Cieślewicz, later Paris based designer and an art director at Vogue and Elle magazines

  Chromolithograph, 51 x 34 cm (13.4 x 20 inches), (small repaired tears in the fold, sporadic light staining in white margins, but otherwise in a good condition).   Istanbul: Matbaa-I Amire [1307-1309 AH [1891-1893 AD] Atlas] – Mahmud Bey Matbaası 1309 AH [1893 AD] [date on the map].  

  A rare map with blank spaces, meant to be filled in by hand, was printed to showcase the drill of the military troops of the Electorate of Saxony in the area between Leipzig and Dresden.

    Camocio’s separately issued map of the Greek island Milos with handsome old colouring   Originally coloured copper engraving, 20 x 14,5 cm, mounting paper: 21,5 x 19 cm (minor staining, a tiny repaired tear in the white margin, but overall in a good condition).  

A rare map of the Bosporus commissioned by Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II and created by Prussian military surveyor Helmuth von Moltke.   Lithography with original colour in outline, 73,5 x 68 cm (29 x 26,77 inches), dissected in 20 segments and mounted on linen. An advertisement of Artaria, Vienna, on green paper mounted on one of the segments verso. Housed…

  A large wall map of Montenedro, was published in Montenegro in 1948, in the year of the the schism between Yugoslavia ans Albania, an event which had great consequences for Montenegro and surrounding regions.

  A talking map.

  An attractive translucent map of the moon, printed on a thick paper, and backed with thin blue paper.

  An extremely rare separately-issued chart of the important port of Essaouira (formerly Mogador), Morocco, issued when the city was being transformed into the country’s greatest port, by Gerard Hulst van Keulen, masterfully engraved and of an uncommonly beautiful design.

MOROCCO (SPANISH / NORTHERN) / RIF WAR:  CUERPO DE ESTADO MAYOR DEL EJÉRCITO.   Madrid: Talleres del Depósito de la Guerra, December 1927.   Colour photolithograph, on 6 untrimmed and un-joined sheets of thick paper, housed in decorative printed paper sleave bearing blindstamp of the ‘Depósito de la Guerra’, rolling into original crimson tube bearing title in silver lettering (Very…

  Colour print, printed from both sides, 43 x 60 cm (17 x 23.6 inches) (soft folds, otherwise in a good condition).  

  A rare poster map, showing the Battle of Moscow and Stalin, was published by the Higher School of Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the highest educational institution on the Soviet Union. 

  An attractive Pre-Revolution Plan of Moscow, printed in Cyrillic text.

  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).  

  An extremely rare and important sea chart depicting the mouth of the Limpopo River, in southern Mozambique; for centuries the Limpopo was one of the great transport corridors into the interior of southern Africa; the chart is based upon groundbreaking scientific surveys by a team of Portuguese naval officers, led by João António Ludovice, conducted in 1893, when the…

  An extremely rare and attractive late 19th century Portuguese sea chart of the mouth of the Rio Tejungo (today known as the Rio Moniga), a key trading port along the north-central coast of Mozambique, the chart being the first edition of the first scientific, trigonometric survey of estuary, conducted in 1898 by Lieutenant João Carlos da Silva Nogueira of…

An exceedingly rare – 1 of only 3 known examples - and historically consequential map; its contents enraged the people of Porto, helping to fuel the Republican Revolt that occurred there on January 31, 1891; the map, which embraces the midriff of Southern Africa, depicts Portugal’s premier colonies of Angola and Mozambique with greatly reduced boundaries, to the benefit of…

  An amazing and unique survivor, being a finely executed original manuscript map of the Praça de São Sebastião, the grand 16th century fortress which guarded the town of Ilha de Moçambique, the capital of Portuguese East Africa and a globally significant entrepôt for slaves, gold and ivory, and which today has the distinction of being the oldest complete fortress…

  Map of Munich made for the occassion of the Arts & Crafts Fair of 1908 as an advertisement by a world famous fabrics and clothing factory Lodenfrey, which specialised in Bavarian and early hiking clothing.  

An attractive and vibrant large format map of Buenos Aires, capturing the city midway through its 50 year-long boom era, when it was one of the world’s most exciting, fast growing and cosmopolitan metropolises – an ‘Edición extraordinaria’ issued to celebrate the 1910 International Railway Exposition, a major sign of the Argentine capital’s coming of age - published by the…

The most consequential map of Namibia made during the German colonial era, a gigantic 8-sheet work that is the first broadly accurate general map of what was the protectorate of Deutsch-Südwestafrika of a scale sufficient for operational use, compiled in great haste but with considerable skill, at the ‘Kolonial-kartographischen Institut’ in Berlin by the master cartographers Paul Sprigade and Max…

  A luxury presentation copy of an army training field near Nuremberg, mounted on blue silk - a colour of the Bavarian noble family. 

  A broadside, announcing that robbing of the corpses as a crime, was printed amid the Napoleonic wars, two days after the Austrian invading of Bavaria and weeks after Napoleon’s taking over Vienna.

A bespoke example of Captain William Cornwallis Harris’ fascinating and important account of his 1836-7 expedition to the Transvaal, featuring the complete collation of the first edition, published in Bombay in 1838, with 4 plates lithographed by the author, plus, his excellent and important map, plus, extra-illustrated by 24 resplendently hand-colored lithographed plates and the map from the subsequent London…

An exquisitely rendered large-format watercolor of the Dodo Bird of Mauritius, after an image published in 1835 by the eminent zoologist Henri de Blainville.

  An interesting, ephemeral photoprint map especially made for trekkers depicting the southern approaches to Mount Everest, published in Kathmandu, Nepal.

  Very rare in commerce – the authoritative firsthand account of the first European attempt to colonize New Guinea, written by Lieutenant Justin Modera of the expedition ship ‘Triton’, who recounts the harrowing attempt to establish Fort Du Bus and to explore the forbidding southwestern coast of New Guinea, featuring a stellar sea chart of the region from Modera’s groundbreaking…

  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…

  Very rare monuments of colonial New Zealand printing and history - a trio of broadsides depicting the locations of the decisive battles of both Te Kooti’s War and Titokowaru’s War, the last major armed Maori uprisings against British colonial rule, published in Wellington, in 1869, by the General Government Lithographic Press.

  Very rare – the first printing of the famous geographer Carl Ritter’s insightful and influential discourse on the early colonization of New Zealand, based upon his extensive interviews of principals of the New Zealand Company, featuring an original map, published in Berlin in 1842. 

  Two rare 1930s maps of Newfoundland were beautifully privately bound together in a green leather binding, made by a famous London based bookbinder Riviere & Son. 

  Rare – the first serious and detailed published proposal for an interoceanic canal across Nicaragua, compiled by the French journalist and speculator Félix Belly, with a large, magnificent, chromolithographed map by the engineer Thomé de Gamond.

  An impressive archive consisting of a stellar original photograph and sixteen manuscript documents relating to the Comte d’Escayrac’s 1856 planned expedition to find the source of the White Nile, two years before John Hanning Speke successfully accomplished said objective, from the personal papers of Gabriel Aubaret, the mission’s second-in-command and subsequently a famous diplomat and a leading figure in…

  An uncommon small map of North America was published in an Ottoman Turkish atlas at the beginning of the 20th century. 

  A very rare cartographic playing card featuring a map of Africa.

A map of Oceania from the first Ottoman lithographed atlas.   Colour Lithography, 32 x 43 cm (12.6 x 17 inches), (soft fold slightly age-toned, minor wear to the margins, but overall in a good condition).

  Chromolithograph, 51 x 34 cm (13.4 x 20 inches), (small repaired tears in the fold, sporadic light staining in white margins, but otherwise in a good condition).      

  A rare broadside in Russian Cyrillic, published by the American Press Office in Saint Petersburg only weeks after the October Revolution, lists the Fourteen Points by President Woodrow Wilson, a statement of principles to end World War I peacefully, for which he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize.

  Exceedingly rare and classified - one of the first accurate surveys of the Ahwaz area of the Arabistan region of Persia (today Khuzistan Province, Iran), importantly showcasing a great stretch of the first oil pipeline in the Middle East, completed in 1912, which connected the Masjed Soleyman Oilfield with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s refinery at Abadan; published in the…

An ephemeral Japanese map illustrating Operation Barbarossa in September 1941 highlights the complex relations between Japan, the Soviet Union, and the Axis powers during World War II. Colour lithography, 53 x 75 cm (21 x 29.8 inches) (soft folds).  

S. l., s.d, but France, circa 1815. 11 originally coloured engravings, each 7 x 6 cm (2.7 x 2.3 inches), 9 folded green sheets, each with printed title on the front, 2 pages of miniature text in the inner side and blank verso (of probably 12 sets), housed in original slipcase with illustrated cover (slipcase soiled with folds and scratches,…

The very rare, spectacular and complete portfolio of 8 very large format maps and 2 Topographical Cross-Sections from the ‘Ordnance Survey of the Peninsula of Sinai’ (1868-9), the ambitious exploring expedition led by the Royal Engineer captains Charles William Wilson and Henry Spencer Palmer that conducted the first scientific mapping and archaeological reconnaissance of the interior of the Sinai, both to…

  A photograph of today little known Prague-based Linguistic Society, joining the prominent Austro-Hungarian researchers of Africa, as well as Indian, Arabic and Classical languages.   Gelatin silver photo, contemporary mounted on thick card, manuscript numbers recto in margin, black manuscript in black ink and pencil on the back, 12 x 16,5 cm (4.7 x 6.5 inches), (minor foxing verso,…

An elaborate large late 19th century colour photogravure of a painting of an Arabian charging army by Alfred Paris was made by a high-end Parisian gallery Boussod, Valadon & Cie.

The foundational map of Namibia – created on the eve of the formal colonization of the region by the venerable linguist, trader, and explorer Dr. Theophilus Hahn from his extensive personal reconnaissance and indigenous interviews, this monumental cartographic achievement accurately charts the routes, European settlements and missions, water sources, as well as the tribal territories and population distribution of the…

[İlk ve Orta Mekteblere Mahsus Coğrafya Atlası / Geographical Atlas for Primary and Middle Schools] Istanbul: A. M. Karmi, Publisher - Leipzig: Wagner & Debes, Printer [1922]. 4°, [2 pp.] lithographed title page and index verso, 24 pp. chromolithographed maps, original green card binding with lettering and green cloth spine (good used condition with minor foxing and minor chips in…

  [Mükemmel ve Mufassal Co‎ğrafya-yı Umumi Atlası /  Complete and Detailed General Geographical Atlas]   8°, [8 pp.], 188 pp.,, [4 pp.], interleaved page between p. 28-29, 37 colour lithographed double paged maps (complete) including one plate with two maps and one folding map, original blue binding with debossed lettering and decoration (sporadic old annotations in Ottoman, one map (Asia)…

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

A larger charming and seemingly unrecorded separately published map of the world in Ottoman language.   Colour lithograph, 49 x 63 cm (19.3 x 24.8 inches) (light water-staining and staining on the left-hand side, otherwise in a good condition).  

  A gigantic (over 2 m) wall map of Rumelia (Northern Greece) made by the Ottoman Military Office   Colour lithography, composed of 12 plates, originally mounted on linen and varnished, with original wooden rollers, 124 x 210 cm (48.8 x 82.7 inches) (minor staining and water-staining, light scratches, small losses of image in the middle part, rollers with chipping…

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.

Photolithography, originally dissected in 8 segments and mounted on linen 74 x 103 cm (29.2 x 40.6 inches), (minor staining, sporadic annotations in pencil in Ottoman in margins, but overall in a good, use condition).

  A large separately published detailed map of Istanbul and the Bosporus, with their contemporary infrastructure and urbanism as developed by 1911, published by the Ottoman state press   Colour lithography, 100 x 108 cm (39.4 x 42.5 inches), originally dissected in 24 segments and mounted on linen (good, used example, slightly age-toned, stained and with small ink-staining, linen with…

  Ottoman Historical Atlas

  [Coğrafya-yı Tabiî İlmine Esas-ı Muhtasar / Physical Goegraphy. The Fundamentals].   A highly sophisticated Ottoman geography education book illustrated with 9 resplendently coloured plates of thematic World Maps, as well as dozens of monochrome diagrams and maps within the text; the work sponsored by American Protestant missionaries for use in their schools throughout Turkey and the Levant, issued in…

  First popular Ottoman book on modern geography and survey   8°. 88 pp., 8 folding plates, original binding with marbled paper covers and brown cloth spine (minor staining, sporadic old annotations and underlined words, old manuscript mathematical drawing in black ink on the inner side of the front cover, binding slightly rubbed mostly around the spine with loss of…

Rare and Important – the first proper geological map of Turkey; a large, separately published work created by the professors Damat Kenan and Ahmet Malik Sayar, issued by the imperial printer in 1920 during the twilight of the Ottoman Empire, forming the foundation for scientific and commercial discovery during the upcoming Turkish Republican Era; printed in Ottoman Turkish text with…

A unique Ottoman manuscript atlas created by a geography teacher at the Preparatory School in Bolu to address the lack of modern printed materials for geography classes. 8º. Manuscript. [14 pp.] text, 99 single- and double-page numbered maps, but actually 101 maps with nos. 10 and 11 marked twice, all maps with contemporary coloured details and verso blank, interleaved blank…

  [Muharebat-ı meşhure-i osmaniye albümü / Album of Famous Ottoman Battles]   A monumental portfolio of the famous Ottoman battles, edited by a famous military leader Ahmed Muhtar Pacha during WWI to commemorate the glorious military past of the Ottoman Empire   Folio. Title page, 33 unbound double page maps, partly printed in colours, with text, 5 single page maps,…

A stellar, large format, original manuscript map of the telegraph system in the Ottoman Balkans, specifically in modern Greece, Northern Macedonia and Albania; with text entirely in Ottoman Turkish, it was drafted in 1889 seemingly as working document by the governmental administration that managed the empire’s telegraph network – an extraordinary survivor documenting a critical medium that revolutionized society during…

  [Memâlik-i Osmaniye Cep Atlası / The Pocket Atlas of the Ottoman Empire]   12°: 6 pp., [2 pp.], 328 pp. text in Ottoman, 64 pp. with single- or double-page maps, lithographed in colour, original dark red cloth binding with black and gold lettering and decoration- (light foxing and staining, last page age-toned, front end-papers replaced, binding slightly rubbed, but…

[Fenn-i Coğrafya İçin Yazısız Harita Defteri. Harita Tersimi Usûlünün Mebâdisi / Blank Map Book for Science of Geography. The Basics of the Map Representation Method] آفريقا [Arika / Africa]   Ottoman filled-in blank atlas of Afrika with unique and exquisite original colour   8°. 22-28 pp. facing pages marked with same numbers [altogether 16 pp.] with hand coloured lithographed maps…

  The first modern middle school atlas for children in Turkey was published in 1928 in Istanbul by a Turkish geographer and a founder of the department for Geography at the Istanbul University Faik Sabri Duran.

  Exceedingly rare – one of the great monuments of Late Ottoman cartography, being the only official large-format Ottoman transportation atlas, including 26 double-page maps of an original, ingenious proto-modernist design, of which 8 maps concern the Arab World, including 1 map showcasing Hejaz and 1 map depicting Mecca & Jeddah; backed by detailed text explaining numerous itineraries for the…

  A rare and intriguing contemporary map of the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on December 1914, which was a prelude for the Battle of Dogger Bank (1915), one of the most important naval battles of World War I, was printed in Ottoman script.

  The map showcases the region between the Sanjak of Zor to Basra, with an inset map representing the area of today’s Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain with marked Kuwait, Qatif, Manama, Najd and Al-Ahsa.   Colour lithography, 19 x 27 cm (7.5 x 10.6 inches), (slightly age-toned and stained in the margins, otherwise in a good condition).

  A gigantic late 19th century map of the Ottoman Empire  

  Map of the Ottoman Empire with the Arabian Peninsula in the middle. Marked are the most important cities and the Hejaz Railway.   Colour lithography, 26 x 38 cm (10.2 x 14.9 inches), (soft fold in the middle slightly stained with tiny repaired holes and tears).

  Colour lithography, 27 x 19 cm (10.6 x 7.5 inches), (slightly age-toned and stained in the margins, otherwise in a good condition).

  Pictorial map of East and West Pakistan in German language printed in Karachi in Pakistan in 1966.     

Very rare – a stellar example of Hüseyin Hüsnü Emir Erkilet’s map of Palestine, a large separately issued work predicated upon field surveys made by Ottoman and German military engineers during World War I, all brought to print on a single map for the first time; issued in Istanbul in 1921 by the Army Press, it was the very last…

  A rare large version of the Pan Am Systems map - one of the most iconic airline posters of all time, from the golden age of luxury jet travel.