Dec 17, 2020 - Sale 2555

Sale 2555 - Lot 196

Price Realized: $ 438
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 200 - $ 250
(PICTORIAL MAP.) Chisolm, I.A. Map Showing the Rides of Paul Revere, Wm. Dawes and Dr. Prescott April 18-19, 1775. Lithographed pictorial map partially printed in colors. 10 3/4x16 3/4 inches sight; heavy age toning at extremities; old wooden frame, 11 3/4x18 inches. Boston: James O. Fagan, 1929

Additional Details

We offer such a map, with its flaws, for the reason of a potentially spirited relationship between the subject of the actual print and the frame it sits in. A label pasted to the verso purports the frame is built of wood from the original roof of the Old North Church in Boston from whose steeple Paul Revere had orchestrated his plan to signal the approach of the British forces with lighted lanterns: "one if by land, two if by sea".

While we cannot definitively confirm or deny the veracity of this claim, we have observed an occasional market appearance of small souvenir samples of Old North Church wood offered for sale as genuine and accompanied by a similar or same circa 1930's label as the present. It has the right feel.