Dec 17, 2019 - Sale 2527

Sale 2527 - Lot 7

Price Realized: $ 11,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
BAKEWELL, THOMAS. America a New and Most Exact Map Laid Down According to the Observations Communicated to the English Royall Society the French Royall Academy of Sciences and Those Made by the Latest Travellers to this Present Year 1748. Large engraved map of North and South America with additional engraved vignette border panels pasted to the left, right and lower edges. 26x40 1/4 inches overall; original hand-color in outline; small competent restorations. London, 1748

Additional Details

Bakewell's scarce map strongly embellished with pictorial panels borrowing well known imagery of the New World from the maps of Hermann Moll and illustrated pages of Theodor de Bry. The lower register is an illuminated glossary of sorts relating simple yet sophisticated naval weaponry. Historical quips and discussion of Caribbean trade routes are found throughout. The central map gives the appearance of being a direct copy or even the same plate of Pieter van der Aa's 1713 "L'Amerique Selon" with engraved additions in English and the cartouche at lower left altered to become the vignette of Admiral Vernon's siege of Porto Bello in 1739. The whole is extremely visually appealing but also quite rare, with OCLC locating a single example of the base map only at the British Library and one example with the side panels dated 1740 in the University of Michigan William Clements Library. Tooley 93 (1740); McLaughlin 218 (1740).