Lot 144
  • 144

Popple, Henry — Johannes Covens, and Cornelius Mortier [publishers]

Estimate
25,000 - 35,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • A Map of the British Empire in America with the French, Spanish and the Dutch Settlements adjacent thereto. Amsterdam: printed for John Covens and Cornelius Mortier, [n.d. ca. 1742]
  • paper, ink, paint
Copper-engraved map on four sheets (26 x 21 1/2 in.; 660 x 546 mm), seven sheets , key map, sheet of harbor maps, all hand-colored in outline, 4 engraved views of Quebec, New York, and Niagara Falls. PROVENANCE: Peter Wraxall 

Some stray spotting or toning, generally not affecting images, pencil sketch on verso of "Nouvelle Carte Particuliere de l'Amerique...Bretagne, Le Canada ou Nouvelle France".

Literature

American National Biography; Babinski, Henry Popple's 1733 Map; Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps 249; Fowble, Two Centuries of Prints in America 1680-1880 6, 7; Goss, The Mapping of North America 55 (key map only); Graff 3322; Howes P481, "b"; Lowery 338; McCorkle, et al., America Emergent 21; McCorkle, New England 741.3; Phillips, Maps 569; Sabin 64140; Schwartz & Ehrenberg p.151; Stephenson & McKee, Virginia in Maps map II-18A-B; Streeter Sale 676

Catalogue Note

An important association copy of the Covens and Mortier edition of the famous Popple map, annotated by Peter Wraxall, a man intimately associated with the establishment and setting of boundaries in colonial America. The thrust of British mapmaking after 1718 was to establish her presence cartographically on the French. Hence the title "The British Empire in America...". Nevertheless, in making the map, Popple used the best available geographical information: Colonel Barnwell's map of the southeast; De L'Isle's "Carte de la Louisiane"; Cadwallader Colden's map of the Iroquois nations, and seems to have come up with a map that did not please imperialistic British viewers as much as it did those who only wanted an accurate depiction. The result was and is a vast map of North America never before delineated in such detail, and a source of delight and intrigue. The map was eventually very successful and there were several editions. Babinksi notes that George Washington owned a copy of the Key map (Popple's abbreviated version) and Benjamin Franklin ordered two copies for the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1746 and another in 1752. The Popple and Mitchell (1755) maps were the most important maps of North America made in the 18th century and were widely known and referred to throughout the formation of the United States. This example is the second state of the edition published by Covens and Mortier in Amsterdam, ca. 1742. It is unusual to have the Key map, as it was frequently separated from the others and framed by itself.

This copy is further individualized in that it is the Wraxall-Dunkin-Van Rensslaer copy, with Wraxall's annotations to the upper left sheet.