Our December 8 Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books auction marked the first million-dollar sale for our flourishing Maps & Atlases department, lead by Specialist Alex Clausen. The sale brought $1.27 million.
Lot 58: William Faden, The North American Atlas, with 42 engraved maps, London,
1777 [circa 1780]. Sold December 8, 2015 for an auction record of $341,000.
The sale was headlined by our featured section The Mapping of America, which included William Faden’s The North American Atlas, a historically significant cartographic item concerning the events of the American Revolution. The atlas brought an auction record of $341,000.
Lot 443: Sir William Hamilton, Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities, three volumes with 390 etchings and engravings, many hand-colored, Naples, 1766-76 [but approx. ten years later]. Sold December 8, 2015 for $47,500.
A first edition set of texts recording Sir William Hamilton’s collection of vases, which were gathered while he served as ambassador to the court of Naples, sold for more than three times its pre-sale estimate with $47,500.
Lot 487: Currier & Ives and Francis “Fanny” Palmer, The “Lightning Express” Trains. “Leaving the Junction,” hand-colored lithograph, New York, 1863. Sold December 8, 2015 for $15,000.
A splendid hand-colored lithograph by Currier & Ives sold for well over its pre-sale estimate, bringing $15,000. Also selling for over its estimate, John Disturnell’s Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico went for $40,000. This map was used to negotiate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which aside from the Louisiana Purchase, was the largest land transaction in American History.
Lot 81: John Disturnell, Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico, engraved folding pocket map,
New York, 1847. Sold December 8, 2015 for $40,000.
Maps & Atlases Specialist Alex Clausen commented that this sale “reinforces Swann Galleries’ position as the foremost place to buy and sell atlases and American cartographic material.”
See full results here.