Search Results: Title Pages and Curiosities from Bryars and Bryars

Amsterdam, 1720. Copper engraving, 30 x 23.5 cms, black and white, elaborate engraved border, Dutch text beneath; generous margins, blank verso. A Dutch ‘fool’s cap’ map, satirising the bursting of the financial bubbles of 1720. Cartographic features are given punning names such as the River Bubble, the Island of Despair and the town of ‘Madmandam’, but the real Rivers Thames, Seine and Meuse are also marked, drawing attention to the scenes of the greatest folly. In Britain, the South Sea Company folded, wiping out inumberable fortunes after a period of intesnse speculation. In France, colourful Scottish financier John Law won the confidence of the Duke of Orleans (then Regent of France), and was permitted to set up the Mississippi Company, which controlled all trade with France’s vast and largely unexplored American possessions - believed to be rich in gold and silver. He established the Royal Bank and issued paper money based on the supposed value of shares in the… Read More

Amsterdam, c. 1650. Copper engraving, 41.5 x 25.5 cm, original hand colour, blank verso. Title left blank so that a separately printed label in the correct language for the edition could be pasted down. The first volume features plans and views of the towns of the Northern provinces, the ‘Free Netherlands’, and their coats of arms are featured here; the towns of the Spanish provinces form volume two. Shirley, Courtiers & Cannibals 49. Map

Amsterdam, c. 1740. Copper engraving, 50 x 60 cms, engraved by Joan van Lugtenberg after Guillaume de L'Isle, original hand colour with later additions to cartouche, slight marginal spotting, blank verso. Pieter Mortier (1661-1711) contributed to the revival of the Dutch map trade, flagging since the achievements of the Golden Age cartographers. After his death the business was continued by his widow, and brother David. From 1721, the business was taken over by Pieter's son Corneille and Jean Covens, the partnership being known as Covens and Mortier, a firm which continued until 1866.  Map

Amsterdam, 1646. Copper engraving, 42 x 25 cm, original hand colour heightened in gold, ink library stamp of a Dutch school affecting top right hand corner of image (the Gymanisum St Alberti in Zenderen, attached to the Carmelite monastery there); blank verso. Architectural title page, engraved for the fourth volume of Blaeu’s Atlas Novus. The central panel is blank: a label in the appropriate language would normal;ly have been pasted down. This is the British volume, and an ancient Briton presides over a Roman, a Saxon, a Dane and a Norman representing different epochs in British history. Shirley, Courtiers and Cannibals, 46A. Map

Rome,, 1692. Copper engraved title-page, 42 x 26.5 cms, black and white as issued, blank verso. Map

Amsterdam, c. 1705. Copper engraved title-page, 40 x 24.5 cms, black and white as issued, blank verso. Engraved for the first volume of Chatelain’s historical atlas. The classical muses represent Chronology, History, Navigation and Geography. Atlas braces himself against a crumbling pyramid, supporting the heavens, while the title of the atlas is suspended on a banner, borne by the winged angel of fame. Shirley, Courtiers & Cannibals, 75. Map

Paris, 1683. Copper engraving, 15 x 10.5 cms, black and white, blank verso, title-page for the first volume of Mallet’s ‘Description de l’Univers’ printed by Denis Thierry. Map

Munich, c. 1703. Copper engraving 23.5 x 35 cms, black and white, blank verso. Allegoricial engraving by Jospeh à Montalegre of Nuremberg after Johannes Degler for Jesuit scholar Heinrich Scherer’s “Atlas Marianus”. In attempting to define the character of the English there is a strong emphasis on trade and discovery; note the map of New England under the arm of the gentleman in the foreground. Map

Amsterdam, 1641. Copper engraved title-page, 37.5 x 23.5 cms, later hand-colour, blank verso. The general Mercator-Hondius architectural title page, in use from 1606 onwards. This is Mercator’s original Atlas - the wise King of Mauritania, measuring a globe, rather than the weary titan. Shirley, Courtiers and Cannibals, 27. Map

London, 1681. Copper engraved title-page, 40.5 x 26.5 cms, black and white as issued, blank verso. Four volumes only of Pitt’s projected eleven volume world atlas were published 1680-83, all dealing with northern Europe. Pitt worked in partnership with Janssonius’ heir Joannes van Waesbergen, and this title-page for the German volume is a reworking of one engraved for Janssonius forty years earlier. The Holy Roman Emperor is now Leopold I, the faces of the other Electors have also been updated, and a there is a considerable amount of additional background detail. Shirley, Courtiers and Cannibals, 48A. Map

Amsterdam, 1639. Copper engraved title-page, 39.5 x 24.5 cms, original hand-colour, minor adhesion damage, old marginal repairs, blank verso. Janssonius’ title page, employed from 1638, closely follows Blaeu’s of 1630, a complex image which “set a decorative standard for the next thirty years”. Through the groups of allegorical figures Blaeu and Janssonius “sought to promise their readers that they will describe all the regions and lands of the whole world, and that it will be based on the most up-to-date knowledge about the physical world of the earth and the celestial heavens above, and be grounded on classical as well as modern knowledge”. Shirley, Courtiers & Cannibals 46. Map

c. 1730. Copper engraved allegorical title page, 50 x 28 cms, modern hand colour, left hand margin reinforced (just touching printed border), blank verso. This title-page, engraved by Romeyn de Hooge, seems to have been used first by Hubert Jaillot in Paris c. 1695, and was subsequently employed by Pieter Mortier (who had a close working relationship with Jaillot) and his heirs. Europe, seated, accepts tribute from the other continents: Asia, Africa and America. In the foreground river and sea deities empty their vases of ceaselessly flowing water. Shirley, Courtiers & Cannibals, 72. Map