Catalogues

Maps are scientific instruments. They offer proof of truth. They portray measured relationships between objects and ideas. To achieve this, however, maps must reduce, omit, and distort a three-dimensional world onto a flat piece of paper. This is the paradox of cartography: to tell the truth, a map must lie.

In antiquity, the earliest geographers and cartographers hypothesised a southern landmass to balance out the northern hemisphere, and when, in the second century, Ptolemy asserted that the Indian Ocean was bounded by land to the south, the legend of a terra australis incognita was born.

The Commonwealth of Dominica. The Nature Island. Wai’tu kubuli, which, in the language of the indigenous Kalinago Indians, translates as ‘Tall is her body’.

This collection, assembled over two generations, portrays Dominica through one hundred maps, prints, books, manuscripts, and ephemera.

Three thousand years of history, geography, religion, and politics in one thousand maps, plans, and books.

There exists a deep-rooted affinity between the history of cartography and the history of the Holy Land. The region served as the subject of the very first survey recorded in writing (Joshua 18:4) and continued to play a prominent role in cartography throughout the following millennia.

Please note that shipping is not included. Costs are: £25 to the UK, £35 to Europe, and £45 to the rest of the world.

“There is nothing in the world of fine books quite like the first discovery of Audubon. The giant energy of the man, and his power of achievement and accomplishment, give to him something of the epical force of a Walt Whitman or a Herman Melville. … Audubon is the greatest of bird painters; he belongs to American history, and as a writer he described things that human eyes will never
see again” (Sitwell)

“Every hand’s a winner!” – A catalogue of 57 decks of playing cards from c1630-1991, including a pack unknown until 2016, a gorgeous set of embroidered silk brocade cards, Ganjifa cards, and several English seventeenth century decks.

Our latest catalogue offers a very select group of the earliest, the most important, and fiendishly rare, maps, atlases, and travel accounts, which are the first printed attempts by European commentators and adventurers, to depict their world, and the emerging outline of the Americas.

‘From Sea to Shining Sea’, the Petros G. Pelos Collection of exceptionally rare first-hand printed and manuscript travel accounts, atlases, portfolios, and governmental proclamations.

Offered together as a single entity, these 100 items not only reflect the emerging shape of the United States, from the end of the Revolutionary War to the beginning of the Civil War, but were fundamentally instrumental in creating its identity.

A cartographic voyage across time and space.

The William B. Ginsberg collection of World Maps; an epitome of the most beautiful, powerful, and influential cartographical images of the 15th and 16^th centuries. The earliest printed maps condensed and edited information from three “traditions” of map-making: Christian iconography, classical cartography, and contemporary charts. Ginsberg’s collection encapsulates the subtle metamorphosis of this amalgam of art and science, myth and metaphor, discovery and design, in nineteen maps: from the world map of the ‘Rudimentum novitiorum’ (1475), the earliest printed map, in magnificent original hand-colour; to the largest Italian world map published in the 16^th century, Giuseppe Rosaccio’s ‘Universale Descrittione di Tuto il Mondo’ (1657).

Playing cards is, in many ways, a hallmark of civilisation. Like maps and money, a deck of cards is a way of representing an entire value system and an understanding of human nature on paper. A game of cards embodies the inherent unpredictability of life, allowing us to grapple with the uncertainties, directing them towards our own ends. At the card table, when the hands are dealt, all men are temporarily equal; it is how they choose to play those cards that determines who will draw ahead. The players are required to practice both strategic and emotional discipline, and one’s reaction to a bad hand or a sudden windfall can reveal much about his temperament and priorities. As in cards, so in life.

A new catalogue focusing on celestial cartography, a selection of items that show how humans have charted the heavens and marked time by the light of the stars for over 500 years.

We are delighted to present our latest catalogue: Hollar – comprising a single-owner collection of works by the master etcher: from maps, topographical views, and architectural drawings, to portraits, records of the latest fashion, and studies of animals.

A new catalogue focusing on London, including a selection of Frost Fair prints, large-scale plans of London boroughs, and the first printed depiction of Elizabeth I as queen.

Popular from the end of the seventeenth century in London and Paris, trade cards performed the dual functions of advertisements and maps, directing the public to the merchants’ stores – often with rambling descriptions to help locate the business in an era where formal street address numbers were rare. Trade cards were sufficiently small so that they could be carried in the gentleman’s pocket or lady’s purse.

Ten years in the making, this collection of cartographic ephemera – including advertisements, catalogues, manuscript correspondence, portraits, price lists, and trade cards – physically illustrates the struggles, exchanges and e orts of some of the leading gures of the map trade over the past five centuries.

The world’s obsession with discovering the exotic source of cinnamon and other elusive spices grew throughout the Roman era and into the medieval period, defining what it meant to be wealthy and powerful. From India to Europe the trade had a profound social, emotional and economic impact; giving rise to some of the first truly international trade routes, and shaping the structure of the world economy in a way that can still be felt today.

A magnificent portolan atlas by Battista Agnese in its original binding, inscribed and attributed to Agnese by the eminent bibliographer Henry Harisse.

An unique, 20 volume monumental grand composite atlas in magnificent condition, compiled by Pierre Jean le Mire (d1753), Canon of the Collegiate Church of Saint Vincent de Soignies in Hainaut.

The globes within these pages are far more than guides to geography and astronomy; they offer a glimpse into history. Observe how land, sea and stars shift over the course of 500 years, as human endeavour and ingenuity gradually uncovered more about the world around us.

Our first bilingual catalogue, and the first dedicated to China: The Middle Kingdom 中國. The catalogue presents an eclectic collection of maps, charts and books related to China spanning the thirteenth to twentieth centuries, reviving different perspectives of Chinese scholars and cartographers, Jesuit missionaries and representatives of the British Empire

The catalogue examines the role of pirates, privateers, buccaneers and freebooters in the tumultuous relationships between European countries as they expanded their trade and territories beyond their borders.

The eighteenth century baroque town plan. The collection comprises massive wall maps of Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Rome, St Petersburg and Venice.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books is pleased to present our catalogue of the Jason C. Hubbard Collection. Jason Hubbard bought his first map in 1971. Since then, he has built up a collection of material relating to Japan, including not only maps of Japan, but also maps of the continent and neighboring countries, sea charts, and books and travel accounts. Because of the considerable breadth of the collection, the catalogue is split into three parts: pre-1800 maps of Japan; post-1800 maps of Japan and sea charts; maps of Asia, China and Tartary, the East Indies, regional maps of Japan and books.

“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind” (Thomas Paine, ‘Common Sense’, 1775-1776). Welcome to catalogue XV, published to coincide with the first anniversary of the opening of our shop in New York; hence the distinct American flavour – or should we say flavor – with almost a third of the items pertaining to the New World.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”

A collection of English pocket globes from the long eighteenth century.

The earliest printed maps condensed and edited information from three “traditions” of map-making: Christian iconography, classical cartography, and contemporary charts.

In this catalogue we have selected 28 items – one for each of the states of the current European Union – that explore the history and idea of the European nation state. In his introductory essay Professor Colin Crouch argues that territorial sovereignty is rooted more in political expediency than in natural borders or cultural identity. Advances in mapmaking technologies not only preceded the birth of the modern European nation state, but were also necessary conditions for its creation.

The 1531 planisphere signed and dated by Vesconte Maggiolo is a remarkable survival: a monumental early sixteenth century portolan chart of the known world, in astonishingly good condition, with rich decoration, vibrant colours, and heightened in lapis lazuli, gold, and silver.

We are pleased to announce the publication of Catalogue IX, released for both the opening of our New York gallery and the inaugural TEFAF fair in New York. Fittingly, many of the items in the catalogue deal with new frontiers, from a copy of the terms of Columbus’s journey to America to a globe showing one woman’s plans for a socialist utopia on Mars.

In 2011, Daniel Crouch Rare Books produced a catalogue of maps showing London from 1574 to the present day. In 2016, we return to the capital, but this time, with a catalogue of prints.

Welcome to Catalogue VII, published on our fifth anniversary. To mark this occasion we have selected from our inventory the most spectacular examples in each of the fields in which we specialise – atlases, maps, globes, voyages, and scientific instruments. Each item is distinguished by its historical interest, rarity, or beauty. The most exceptional combine all three, like the pair of Blaeu globes made for Schloss Baldern in Germany (item 46). All represent pinnacles of human achievement, created by the most gifted scholars and craftsmen of their time.

Catalogue VI represents something of a departure for Daniel Crouch Rare Books. In the year that marks 300 years since the passing of the Longitude Act, and the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, we thought it a good time to put together a collection of calculating machines from the first information revolution.