Press

Daniel Crouch Rare Books has just issued their Catalogue III, Mapping London. Crouch is a specialist in maps and the associated types of material, such as sea charts, plans, atlases and globes. They focus on antiquarian examples, though there are a few items this time that make it into the last century. In this catalogue, Crouch has centered on one small corner of the globe, the city of London, and occasionally, a few miles of surrounding lands. Since most maps are targeted right on the city, as it follows the banks and bend in the River Thames, thumbing through this catalogue gives a bird’s eye view of how much the city has grown over the four centuries from the 15th through the 19th century. Naturally, a current map would show much greater expansion still, but London looks barely more than a large village 400 to 500 years ago.

Resolved to read more this year? Ianthe Butt finds much to tempt in London’s quirkiest independent bookstores.

Fine art buying has long been the province of wealthy connoisseurs and international collectors, keen on indulging their passion and untroubled by cost and potential profit.

According to Jonathan Potter, doyen of British antique map dealers, “a collection of London maps alone would involve hundreds of different publications regardless of variant editions of one map”. There are small-scale maps, showing the Cities of London and Westminster in the context of the surrounding counties; there are sectional maps and ward plans; there are bird’s eye panoramas; there are large-scale surveys, giving streets and houses; and there are descriptive maps and diagrammatic plans, such as Booth’s 1889 Map of London Poverty or Harry Beck’s classic 1932-33 Underground Railways of London.

Rare maps and atlases have an enduring appeal and can offer a safe haven for your money.

Catalogue II from Daniel Crouch Rare Books.

Our diarist Freya Simms offers her fortnightly reflections on her favourite London haunts

Daniel Crouch Rare Books, Thursday, 03 November 2011 – Saturday, 12 November 2011.

Recognized as one of the finest antique shows in the world, the Dallas International Art, Antique & Jewelry Show will be held November 2-6, 2011 at the new, state-of-the-art Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas and will feature more than 80 of the world’s most acclaimed exhibitors, including TEFAF Maastricht exhibitors Antiquariaat FORUM BV, Daniel Crouch Rare Books, Dr. Joern Guenther Rare Books AG and Inlibris, who will each showcase their impressive collections of rare books, manuscripts and autographs. Also highlighted at the show will be fine art, antique and estate jewelry, furniture, porcelain, Asian antiquities, American and European silver, glass, textiles, sculpture, contemporary art and more.

Timed to coincide with Asian Art in London, 3rd to 12th November 2011, map dealer Daniel Crouch Rare Books will be exhibiting work by Ferdinand Verbiest completed at the Chinese Court during the start of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), as well as antique Chinese porcelain, presented by Woolley & Wallis Auctioneers.

Timed to coincide with Asian Art in London, 3rd to 12th November 2011, map dealer Daniel Crouch Rare Books will be exhibiting work by Ferdinand Verbiest completed at the Chinese Court during the start of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), as well as antique Chinese porcelain, presented by Woolley & Wallis Auctioneers.

Almost a year to the day after setting up on his own, antiquarian book and maps dealer Daniel Crouch opens a gallery in the heart of London’s St James’s. After a number of years working for the London books specialist Bernard Shapero, 37 year-old Daniel made his debut as an independent dealer last September in New York at the Haughtons’ International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show.