Christie's announces sale of rare atlases from renowned explorers

PanARMENIAN.Net - Christie’s announced the sale of rare books and manuscripts Ex Libris Jean R. Perrette: Important Travel, Exploration, and Cartography on April 5, 2016 in New York, Art Daily reports.

With over 500 lots, this private collection is focused on the landmark works of travel and exploration from the 15th through the 19th century. Included are atlases, travel narratives, and records of explorations and discovery around the globe.

Highlights comprise some of the rarest examples of early cartography, such as the augmented edition of the first great printed atlas, the Ulm Ptolemy (lot 8), with the maps colored, and including the famous world map showing the north Atlantic; the Blaeu's Atlas Major 1662 (lot 45), the largest and most expensive atlas hitherto produced with 11 volumes bound in publishers’ vellum and finely colored; and Waghenaer’s Speculum Nauticum 1586 (lot 28) the first of the great maritime atlases.

Other works of note document significant voyages and discoveries across the globe from extensive representations of the New World, including a significant group of works by Samuel de Champlain, to early East-West interactions with Asia, among them rare Chinese and Japanese language manuscripts and atlases.