Records & Results: Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books

Runaway Currier & Ives Print with Special Ties to Thomas W. Streeter Sets Record at Swann

We closed out our fall season with a marathon sale of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books on Thursday, December 13.

Currier & Ives

The runaway top lot of the sale was Across the Continent, 1868, a Currier & Ives print depicting the changing landscape of the mid-nineteenth-century American frontier upon the completion of the Transcontinental Railroads. Significant for its subject matter and memorable provenance, the work came across the block, by descent, from the noteworthy collection of Thomas Winthrop Streeter who was gifted the lithograph on his 80th birthday by his children. Across the Continent reached $62,500–a record for the print.

Lot 342: Currier & Ives, Across the Continent, New York, 1868, formerly in the collection of Thomas Winthrop Streeter. Sold for $62,000.

Maps & Atlases

Maps and atlases represented a generous portion of the sale with several lots taking top spots and setting records. Maps included Samuel de Champlain’s scarce 1664 record of his later discoveries in Canada with $22,500, and John Overton’s New and Most Exact Map of America from 1671 with $11,875.

Lot 40: Samuel de Champlain & Pierre Du Val, Le Canada Faict par le Sr de Champlain ou sont La Nouvelle France, Paris, 1664. Sold for $22,500.

Lot 173: John Overton, A New and Most Exact Map of America, London, 1671. Sold for $11,875.

Additional cartographic material featured a chart of the middle Atlantic Coast including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina by Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres ($13,750).

Lot 58: Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres, A Chart of the Coast of New York, New Jersey, Pensilvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, &c., London, 1780. Sold for $13,750.

Joan Vingboons’ Caarte van Westindien, circa 1700, a large engraved chart of Florida, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean ($10,625); and a 1676 New and Accurate Map of the World by John Speed ($9,375).

Lot 212: Joan Vingboons, Caarte van Westideien, Amsterdam, circa 1700. Sold for $10,625.

Atlases included George Woolworth Colton’s Atlas of America on the physical and political geography of North and South America and the West India Islands, which set a record with $11,250, and a first edition of a rare atlas of Spanish-controlled harbors in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, which earned $11,700.

Lot 235: George Woolworth Colton, Atlas of America, Baltimore, 1856. Sold for $11,250.

Lot 248: Portulano de la America Setentrional, Madrid, 1809. Sold for $11,700.

Satire

Perhaps in response to the political climate, satirical color plate books performed well: Caricaturana, 1836-38, Honoré Daumier’s collaboration with Charles Philipon, taking aim at French society sold for $18,750; and The Caricature Magazine, circa 1806, by George Moutard Woodward, which satirized various elements of nineteenth-century British social and political themes, garnered $16,250. Later in the sale, individual Gillray prints saw a 100% sell-through rate.

Lot 275: Honoré Daumier & Charles Philipon, Caricaturana, Paris, 1836-38. Sold for $18,750.

Lot 319: George Moutard Woodward, The Caricature Magazine, London, circa 1806. Sold for $16,250.

Color Plate Books

Additional highlights from color plate books included John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, 1859, which featured seven volumes and 500 tinted and hand-colored lithograph plates. The publication was offered together with Audubon’s The Quadrupeds of North America and reached $16,250.

Lot 270: John James Audubon, The Birds of America, New York, 1859. Sold for $16,250.

Lot 270: John James Audubon, The Quadrupeds of North America, New York, 1849-54.

Michel Rene d’Auberteuil’s eighteenth-century weekly Parisian theatre journals, Costume et Annales des Grands Theatres de Paris, set a record with $11,875. Also from the selection was Thomas Say’s American Conchology, 1830, and a well-illustrated manuscript ciphering book from the eighteenth century by William Greene ($8,750 and $8,125, respectively).

Lot 281: Michel Rene d’Aubertueil, Costumes et Annales des Grands Theatres de Paris, Paris, 1786-1789. Sold for $11,875.

Lot 279: William Greene, well-illustrated eighteenth-century manuscript ciphering book, Cambridge, 1783-84. Sold for $8,125.

Japanese Cartography

A run of Japanese material was led by a color woodblock map of Uraga and Edo Bay relating to Commodore Matthew Perry and His Black Ships at $15,600. Additional Perry material included a manuscript report on the arrival of the commodore, featuring two large portraits of Perry and Commander Henry A. Adams, which was sold for $6,500.

Lot 110: Color woodblock map of Uraga and Edo Bay showing the course of Commodore Perry’s Black Ship squadron, Japan, circa 1854. Sold for $15,600.

A panoramic color woodblock map of the roadways, waterways, cities, towns and topography of the entire island chain of Japan; and a large Edo-period woodblock Japanese atlas and encyclopedia were won for $8,450 apiece.

Lot 99: Dai Nihon Dochu Kotei Saiken Ki, Tokyo, 1804. Sold for $8,450.

Lot 244: Eidai Setsuyo Tenga Zo, Japan, 1863. Sold for $8,450.

Complete Results.

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