Nov 18, 2008 - Sale 2163

Sale 2163 - Lot 52

Price Realized: $ 13,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
SANTA BARBARA, JUST MONTHS AFTER THE FIRST SPANISH SETTLEMENT (CALIFORNIA.) [Pantoja y Arriaga, Juan.] Plano de la Ensenada del Principe . . . en la Canal de Santa Barbara. 2 facing pages on one 12 x 15-inch sheet. Manuscript map with details added in red and orange ink, reinforced separations along fold and two small closed 4-inch mended tears in margins and blank areas; some offsetting between map and description pages, vertical crease across map image. [San Diego?], circa September 1782
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Additional Details

an important early map of the harbor at santa barbara. The Presidio at Santa Barbara was founded in April of 1782, and this map depicts the area in early August of the same year. The notes for this map were taken during a supply mission by the Mexican naval frigates Princesa and Favorita. The map is unsigned, but the mapmaker was certainly Juan Pantoja y Arriaga, second in command of the Princesa, who made several other important maps of the California coast in the same style during this 1782 voyage, completing his work during a stop in San Diego that September.
Approximately 8 miles of shoreline are shown on this attractive map, including most of the present-day city. Depth soundings are shown throughout the harbor, including a navigational channel up to Punta Martinez, now the site of the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. The anchorages of the Princesa and Favorita are shown, the Presidio (established in April 1782) and the Indian settlements of Yoctu and Soló are depicted in red, and a bed of seaweed is outlined with yellow dots.
Pantoja y Arriaga's journals were translated into English in 1982 as "Voyage of the Frigate Princesa to Southern California," which reproduces an almost identical fair copy of this map on pages 132-3 from the collection of the University of California, Berkeley.