Press

This year, Abu Dhabi Art expanded with the birth of a new section called the Collector’s Salon, which features antiquarian works for the first time, ranging from manuscripts and astrolabes to armour and rare books.

The section not only broadened the fair’s offering but also foregrounded the oft-neglected cultural history of the Middle East through documents and artefacts that have long gone unseen.

Click here to read about The Asala Collection exhibited at our stand – an archive of over 33,000 photographs that document the rapid growth of the United Arab Emirates, Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, and the Holy Land from 1860 to 1960.

Time Out magazine covers Firsts Hong Kong, a rare book fair held in the Maritime Museum this December.

The article highlights Daniel Crouch for bringing the only Dutch edition of the first atlas of China produced in Europe, Novus Atlas Sinensis from 1655 by Jean Blaeu.

Read the full story here.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books were the winning bidders on the Marauder’s Map from the Harry Potter film series.

Sold on behalf of ‘The Boy Who Lived’ – David Holmes, Radcliffe’s stunt double for the first six Harry Potter films, who broke his neck and was left paralysed during filming for The Deathly Hallows.

Funds from the sale will go towards wheelchairs, mobility equipment, and personal care costs for Mr Holmes.

Read about the sale in the Antique Gazette here.

Just over a year ago, Daniel Crouch came into possession of a 19th-century map drawn by a man named Gregor MacGregor. “The first thing you need to know about Gregor MacGregor, from the Clan Gregor, is he’s improbably named,” says Crouch. “The second is that his story is so improbable, but, trust me, everything I’m about to tell you is true.”

Read the story on this legendary con artist here.

The Abu Dhabi Art Fair transcends a typical art fair. It serves as the pinnacle of a year-round programme of art installations, exhibitions, talks, and events.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books will be exhibiting The Asala Collection, an archive of more than 33,000 photographs providing an intimate portrayal of the modern Middle East’s formation from 1860 to 1960. The collection includes loose images, glass slides, and more than 350 albums capturing major historical events.

Read more about the collection on p102 of ‘Orientations’.

All the best books begin with a map.

Daniel Crouch brainstormed this idea with daughter over a pint in a pub. Shortly afterwards, the collection of fictional cartography – I wisely started with a map! – began with gusto.

One of the finest collections of maps of non-existent places, the entire exhibition is to be sold en bloc. As The Times reports:

“We think we’ve done something quite important and fun”.

Frieze Masters is an art fair that brings attendees “face to face with millennia of art history,” and this year’s edition was no exception. It drew in buyers and institutions with a deliberate and conscientious collecting style, presenting artwork from Manet to the Palaeolithic period.

Find our Alice in Wonderland globe, complete works of Jules Verne, and the full article here.

For Frieze Masters this year, our exhibition I wisely started with a map! traced over 2,700 years of fictitious cartography, featuring maps of much-beloved lands like Middle-Earth, Lilliput and Oz.

We created a magical, Narnia-like stand, complete with wooden doors covered in fur coats à la The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 

Read about the official reaction here.

From a first edition of Daniel Defoe’s Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, to a world map by Herman Moll, our stand at Frieze Masters this year included:

• Dante’s infernal survey of hell
• The first map of Atlantis, printed in 1665
• A map of ‘Poyais’ created by the fraud Gregor MacGregor, who convinced hundreds of people to invest in and settle in this fictional place
• The first printed map of Oz,  from Munchkinland to the Emerald City
• F. Scott Fizgerald’s map of East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes

Read the full article here.

With Frieze Masters 2024 fast approaching, Daniel Crouch Rare Books has been featured in Country Life. Huon Mallalieu writes:

“Daniel Crouch, the London antiquarian map dealer, has created an exhibition of the cartography of fictional worlds over 2,700 years, ‘featuring maps of such magical lands as Middle Earth, Lilliput, Oz… there and back again’.  

“Tolkien’s Middle Earth as portrayed by Pauline Baynes in 1970 is key; as the author said: ‘I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case, it is weary work to compose a map from a story.”

Formally the China in Print fair, Firsts have taken the Hong Kong international book fair under their umbrella for this coming December. It will be held in the Hong Kong Maritime Museum from 6 to 8 December.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books will be bringing the first and only Dutch edition of the first atlas of China made in Europe – Novus Atlas Sinensis from 1655 by Jean Blaeu, an exceptional work based on the travels of Father Martino Martini (1614-1661), a Jesuit missionary in China. We will also be bringing Cornelius De Jode’s rare circular map of China, China Regnum, from 1593, which shows the kingdom of China with some intriguing illustrations of East Asian life.

Read the full article here.

Frieze Masters is upon us next month. In anticipation, Daniel Crouch was interviewed for Frieze Magazine on changes in cartography, London’s heterogenous expertise, and how the city is no longer the ‘worst culinary destination on earth’.

Click here to read the interview.