Dec 17, 2020 - Sale 2555

Sale 2555 - Lot 223

Price Realized: $ 11,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
SCHEDEL, HARTMANN. [World Map.] Das Ander Alter Der Werlt. Double-page woodcut map of the world bordered along the left by seven bizarre humanoid creatures. 16 3/4x23 3/4 inches sheet size, wide margins; German text and 14 additional strange woodcut figures on verso; minor soiling, a few unobtrusive worm holes but on the whole an excellent example. Nuremberg, 1493
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Additional Details

Ptolemaic world map from Schedel's Liber Chronicarum, more popularly known as the Nuremberg Chronicle. Printed in 1493, the map is important being one of the final representations of the known globe before geography was forever changed by the European discovery of the New World. However, according to Shirley, "What gives the map its present-day interest and attraction are the panels representing the outlandish creatures and beings that were thought to inhabit the furthermost parts of the earth... a six-armed man, possibly based on glimpses of a file of Hindu dancers… a six-fingered man, a centaur, a four-eyed man from a coastal tribe in Ethiopia; a dog-headed man from the Simien Mountains, a cyclops, one of those men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders, one of the crook-legged men who live in the desert and slide along instead of walking; a strange hermaphrodite, a man with one giant foot only (stated by Solinus to be used as a parasol but more likely an unfortunate sufferer from elephantiasis), a man with a huge underlip (doubtless seen in Africa), a man with waist-length hanging ears, and other frightening and fanciful creatures of a world beyond" -- Shirley 19.