Elihu Barker, “A Map of Kentucky from Actual Survey,” 1793. Map, 44 × 99 cm. Library of Congress.
The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky: “A rare 18th-century wall map depicting frontier Kentucky that was put up for auction Thursday in New York has sold for $37,500—more than twice its high estimated value.” (See the Library of Congress’s copy of the map above.) [WMS]
“Two large maps and six sketches of military defenses hand drawn by French military engineers in 1781 and used during the American War of Independence, the last such documents in private hands, will be auctioned off at a chateau in France next month,” Bloomberg reports. “Salvaged in 2007, the maps—that only barely escaped becoming mouse food—show British defenses along the East Coast, including fortifications near New York. They are being sold by the eighth-generation descendants of Marshall de Rochambeau, the commander of the French expeditionary force sent by King Louis XVI to aid the American rebels.” [WMS]
As the Guardian article about the book points out, hand-colouring maps and illustrations was a common activity before full-colour printing was a thing, so the current mania for adult colouring books—Gretchen Peterson’s City Maps: A Coloring Book for Adults is The Map Room’s best-selling book this year by a large, large margin—can in some ways be seen as a reversion rather than a new thing.
The Gallery of the Geographical Maps was a papal tour de force for its size, scope, speed and style. At 120 meters it is longer than a football field, yet the magnificent frescoes articulate the space with an elegant rhythm. The hall itself was designed by Ottaviano Mascherino for Pope Gregory XIII who wanted to link his new astronomical observatory, “The Tower of the Winds,” with the apostolic palace, so his guests would walk amidst terrestrial maps before climbing to observe the heavens.
Philip Carrigain, New Hampshire, 1816. Paper map, 132 × 121 cm. David Rumsey Map Collection.
The Wiscasset Newspaper (seriously, that’s what it’s called) of Wiscasset, Maine profiles former resident Gary Flanders, who’s “made it a hobby collecting old colonial maps of the Wiscasset area.” [WMS]
An exhibition at the Chidō Museum in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture features a huge (11 m × 5 m) mid-17th-century map of northeastern Japan, the Asahi Shimbun reports: “It is a copy of the Dewa Ikkoku no Ezu picture map, which was jointly compiled by feudal domains controlling the region stretching from today’s Yamagata Prefecture to neighboring Akita Prefecture.” [WMS]
Joint Commission, Map of the River Sabine from Logan’s Ferry to 32nd degree of North Latitude, 1841. Paper, 22.1″ × 28.6″. Texas General Land Office.
Running from 29 April to 5 September 2016 at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas, Mapping Texas: From Frontier to the Lone Star State “is a once-in-a-generation, collaborative exhibition covering nearly three hundred years of Texas mapping. The maps, dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, document the birth of Texas, the evolution of the physical and political boundaries of the state and the rise of the Alamo and San Antonio Missions.” [WMS]
Adrian Webb’s Thomas Hurd, RN and His Hydrographic Survey of Bermuda, a book about the hydrographic survey of Bermuda conducted by Royal Navy hydrographer Thomas Hurd between 1789 and 1797, has just been published by the National Museum of Bermuda, the Bermudian Royal Gazette reports. Not available on Amazon, no link at the Museum’s website. [WMS]
The Denver Post has a piece that is simultaneously a profile of Christopher Lane, proprietor of the Denver-based Philadelphia Print Shop West (which sells its share of antique maps) and a look at the Rocky Mountain Map Society’s upcoming Map Month. Its theme, “Illusions, Delusions & Confusions,” will be explored by a series of lectures at the Denver Public Library running from 2 May to 9 June and two concurrent exhibitions on myths in maps at Denver’s Central Library and at the Map Library of the University of Colorado Boulder: brochure, program (PDF). [via]
Another Italian map exhibit to tell you about: 1716-2016 Cielo e Terra, featuring the cartographic holdings of Rome’s Biblioteca Casanatense, including the 1716 celestial and terrestrial globes of Amanzio Moroncelli, opens tomorrow and runs until 28 November. [WMS]
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Another Italian map exhibit to tell you about: