Sotheby’s auction of maps and atlases time travels in Middle East
10 May 2021
Muhammad Yusuf,
Features Writer
Open for bidding now (online auction: Apr. 27 - May 13), Sotheby’s Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History auction features rare highlights from Middle Eastern history, including an engraving from 1791, showing a panoramic view of Makkah. Measuring 430 x 865 mm, the engraving the largest of its kind produced at the time depicts pilgrims from as far as the mountain of Arafat arriving for the Hajj, charting their journey into the holy city. The print has long been considered unobtainable, with very few copies appear to have survived a fire in Pera in 1791. The engraving carries an estimate of £12,000 -18,000. Works of topography through the ages abound, from early accounts of travels in the Near and Middle-East (Nicolay’s Navigations, peregrinations and voyages made into Turkie, 1596) to a photographic record of travels in Tibet and Lhasa, made in
1572 (undated)
1 : 10000
Description
A handsome example of the Braun and Hogenberg s 1572 map and view of Paris, France. With the Seine flowing at center around the Île de la Cité, this view looks on Paris from the northwest, with the top of the map oriented to the southeast. The city is presented on from equidistant bird s-eye perspective wherein all structures are rendered in view form but from a uniform height and angle relative to all individual points. Fertile fields surround the city, and the rivers bustles with boats, suggesting richness and prosperity. In the bottom left corner, a man greets two women, all wearing clothing corresponding to the Spanish influenced fashion norms of 1560 - 1570. The Bastille, an infamous prison prior to the French Revolution, appears here at top center, surrounded by a moat. The 1550 bastion, appearing to the left of the main structure of the Bastille is also evident. The map s title Lutetia refers to the roman n
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One of the world’s earliest photobooks, which features 125 images of Egypt, Jerusalem and Baalbek from the 1850s, is on the auction block with a starting bid of £100,000 ($139,177).
The volume
Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie by Maxime Du Camp is part of the Sotheby’s Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History sale, which focuses on illustrated works of natural history, geography and world maps.
Du Camp’s book is the outcome of a trip to the Middle East in 1849. The French writer ventured to Egypt with novelist Gustave Flaubert, commissioned by the French government to photograph archaeological sites and document the state of commerce and agriculture in various areas.
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