Maps

UK: ILLUSTRATED here is a plan of Aberdeen, one of 47 double-page engraved or litho plans (some folding) from a copy of John Wood’s Town Atlas of Scotland of 1818-26, rebound in modern boards, which sold for £2800 in the Lyon & Turnbull sale of February 17.

US: THE Isle of Wight is seen at lower right in the map illustrated here, which is part of the first large-scale geological map of any country ever issued, Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland... by William Smith.

UK: THE Travel sale held by Sotheby’s on December 14 included a fine collection of what are known as ‘Lafreri-School’ maps, the product of a remarkable flowering of cartographic arts that took place in Rome and Venice, c.1540-70.

UK: IT is about as accurate as a relief map moulded from pearlware could be, but why, assembled dealers and collectors at Sotheby’s Gleneagles were asking themselves, was the title of the country to the piece, left, inscibed upside down?