Spring Sale 2025
Rare Maps
Rare Atlases
Rare Books
Rare Prints
Seller and Price’s extremely rare chart of the Southern Atlantic
A New Generall Chart of the Coast of Guinea and Brasil
From C. Virde to C. de Bona Esperance, And from the River of Amazons to Rio de la Plata, &c, of Ed. Wright's projection vut Mercator's Chart.
London,
Ier. Seller and Cha. Price At the Hermitage Staires,
1703
Engraved chart with original hand colour, heightened in gold.
15922
A chart of the South Atlantic, from Jeremiah Seller and Charles Price's extremely rare 'The English Neptune or, A New Sea Atlas...', published in 1704.
The brief partnership of Price and Seller, survived until 1705, when the partnership went bankrupt (not for the first time in Price's life). One of the partnership's major publications was the 'English Neptune...'. Alas the atlas was clearly not a commercial success, as we are only aware of one institutional example (Yale University Library), which as well as the 13 charts by Price and Seller contains a further 16 charts by Herman Moll, and Thomas Mount and Richard Page. The presence of other cartographer's charts would suggest that the atlas was, most likely, formed after the partnership went bankrupt in 1705. Further weight to this argument is that when one looks at the only example appearing at auction, which contained 18 charts, 13 were by Seller and Price, and five by Herman Moll.
Charles Price (1679-1733) was apprenticed to John Seller (1632-1697), the father of English sea atlas publishing, in February 1694. He was made free of the Merchant Taylors' Guild on 1 September 1703, on the same day as John Seller's son Jeremiah Seller. He worked in partnership with Jeremiah Seller (1700-1705), with John Senex (1705-1710), with George Wildey (1710-1713), and with instrument maker Benjamin Scott (1715-1718). In 1727, he announced that work would begin on "a general atlas for sea and land". In 1729, on his chart of the English Channel, he advertised for 'A Compleat Sea Atlas", which would cover the whole world and contain some 250 charts. Only 31 charts are known to have been published by Price before he was confined to the Fleet Prison for debt in December 1731. He continued to advertise his work at a reduced price "for ready money... ill fortune and ill usage has constrain'd me to sell my goods at this cheap rate". He died early in 1733, leaving his stock equally to his son Charles, his daughter Ann, and his wife Elizabeth.
Individual charts from the atlas are particularly rare on the market. We are unaware of any example of the present map appearing at auction in the last 30 years. We have only been able to trace one institutional example: The Israel National Library.
The brief partnership of Price and Seller, survived until 1705, when the partnership went bankrupt (not for the first time in Price's life). One of the partnership's major publications was the 'English Neptune...'. Alas the atlas was clearly not a commercial success, as we are only aware of one institutional example (Yale University Library), which as well as the 13 charts by Price and Seller contains a further 16 charts by Herman Moll, and Thomas Mount and Richard Page. The presence of other cartographer's charts would suggest that the atlas was, most likely, formed after the partnership went bankrupt in 1705. Further weight to this argument is that when one looks at the only example appearing at auction, which contained 18 charts, 13 were by Seller and Price, and five by Herman Moll.
Charles Price (1679-1733) was apprenticed to John Seller (1632-1697), the father of English sea atlas publishing, in February 1694. He was made free of the Merchant Taylors' Guild on 1 September 1703, on the same day as John Seller's son Jeremiah Seller. He worked in partnership with Jeremiah Seller (1700-1705), with John Senex (1705-1710), with George Wildey (1710-1713), and with instrument maker Benjamin Scott (1715-1718). In 1727, he announced that work would begin on "a general atlas for sea and land". In 1729, on his chart of the English Channel, he advertised for 'A Compleat Sea Atlas", which would cover the whole world and contain some 250 charts. Only 31 charts are known to have been published by Price before he was confined to the Fleet Prison for debt in December 1731. He continued to advertise his work at a reduced price "for ready money... ill fortune and ill usage has constrain'd me to sell my goods at this cheap rate". He died early in 1733, leaving his stock equally to his son Charles, his daughter Ann, and his wife Elizabeth.
Individual charts from the atlas are particularly rare on the market. We are unaware of any example of the present map appearing at auction in the last 30 years. We have only been able to trace one institutional example: The Israel National Library.
