A NEW USE FOR MAPS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 132, 30 November 1935, Page 27

A NEW USE FOR MAPS

Map collecting has always been a highly-specialised hobby, but now many people are realising the possibilities of these old "pictures" for house decoration, either in sections for use as lampshades, or, better still, for mounting and hanging, says L. D. Cosgrove in'the "Daily Mail." For the real romance of such maps we must go back nearly four hundred years. Then the mapmaker was never afraid of allowing his imagination, to outstrip his knowledge. Lions and tigers are freely scattered on what we now know to be water, and whales and dolphins—always favourites with the early cartographers—frisk about on dry land. No map was complete without an ormanmentai border of castles and battles, coats of arms and galleons. Those who have recently taken to the study of maps have the comforting knowledge that they may always come upon a prize not only of great interest but also of great value. Not so long ago a "Lafreri" atlas was purchased for £800 and presented to the Birmingham Public Library. , The first modern map of Great Britain and Ireland was printed in Rome in 1546, but it was printed by an Englishman—George Lily. The first masterpiece to be produced in England was the work of a Yorkshireman, Christopher Saxton, who was born in 1542. He had the good fortune to be commissioned by Thomas Seckford to survey and publish a map of England and Wales. In 1579 Sax-

ton's work was complete and he published an atlas of 35 double-page folio sheets with a portrait of Queen Elizar beth as frontispiece. The complete atlas is how very rare and is probably worth about £150. Odd sheets are occasionally met with and are worth anything'from £2 to £15 each. These maps are among the most attractive for wall decoration and are much sought after. In 1583 Saxton issued another atlas on' twenty sheets, but of this the British Museum possesses the only known copy. Another great English cartographer was Speed, who, in 1611, issued his remarkably decorative atlas of .67 double pages. - Halfway through the seventeenth century the Dutchmen William and John Bleau and Joannes Janson issued in Antwerp a series of maps of England and Scotland. These maps, emblazoned in gold and richcolours, are, perhaps, the most decorative of all. One of the greatest prizes which could possibly fall to the lot of a collector would be a copy of'Mercator's copper-engraved map of England arid Scotland on eight folio sheets published in 1562. This is.the best of. all the 16th century maps, but the only known copy was discovered in Breslau in 1890, and even the British Museum has to be content • with a facsimile. ■ ;--lt seems incredible that in all the old country houses of Britain there is not somewhere tucked away a copy of this map. . ■■ v '■■:■'