A 16th-century globe bought for £150 at a Welsh antiques fair has sold at auction for £116,000. It had been expected to fetch £20-30,000. The globe, which dates to the 1550s or 1560s and believed to be by, or derived from work by, François Demongenet, includes sea monsters but not Australia (not yet discovered by Europeans) and is made of paper gores, which makes it both rare and fragile. More from the auction house here. Auction listing. BBC News coverage. (Image: Hansons Auctioneers.)
Tag: auctions
Winnie-the-Pooh Map Sells for £430,000 at Auction
E. H. Shepard’s original illustrated map of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood has sold at auction for £430,000, about three times the amount it was expected to fetch: BBC News, The Guardian. It’s the highest amount any book illustration has ever sold for at auction; this particular map has been auctioned twice before, most recently in 1970, when it sold for £1,700.
Previously: Original Winnie-the-Pooh Map Being Auctioned Next Month.
Copy of Ratzer’s Map of Colonial New York Auctioned for $150,000
A 1776 map of New York City sold at auction in New York last April for $150,000, the Daily Mail reported at the time. The map is the second edition of the more famous, and rare, 1770 map showing the work of surveyor Bernard Ratzer. It was published in England, and was apparently put to use by British officers during the American Revolution. The New York Public Library’s copy has been digitized and is available online. [WMS]
Previously: Map of Colonial New Jersey Rediscovered.
Original Winnie-the-Pooh Map Being Auctioned Next Month
The original illustrated map of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood, drawn by E. H. Shepard, is being auctioned at Sotheby’s in July. Sotheby’s press release (PDF): “Featuring on the opening end-papers of the original 1926 book, the sketch introduces readers to the delightful imagination of Christopher Robin and his woodland friends. Exactly 40 years later the map played a starring role in the landmark Disney film—Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree—where it was brought to life as an animation in the film’s opening sequence.” The map, one of the best-known in English literature, is expected to fetch between £100,000 and £150,000; the BBC reports that the map last sold in 1970 for £1,700. Four original drawings by Shepard are also being auctioned. [Atlas Obscura]
JFK’s Cuban Missile Crisis Map Sells for Nearly $140,000
A map of potential Soviet targets in Cuba used by President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis has sold at auction for $138,798. Both buyer and seller were anonymous; the seller says the map had been given to them 20 years ago by former defense secretary Robert McNamara. CBS Boston, CNN, Fine Books and Collections. [Tony Campbell]
Alex Clausen and the Fake Waldseemüller Globe Gores
It seems like everyone who evaluated the Waldseemüller globe gores is going to get a profile. The recently discovered gores were going to be auctioned by Christie’s last month until experts found evidence that they were carefully faked copies. That was, as I said at the time, a bombshell. Since then we’ve seen profiles of the experts at the James Bell Ford Library and Michal and Lindsay Peichl; now add to the list Alex Clausen, the gallery director of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps in La Jolla, California, whose work on the globe gores got profiled this week in the La Jolla Light. The article is a bit breathless in tone, but goes into much more detail than some of the others and is worth your time. Some key points:
- Clausen guesses that the forgery was done in the 1940s or 1950s (“The prime forgery suspect is Carl Schweidler, whom Clausen calls ‘probably the best paper restorer of the 20th century.’”);
- The reason why Christie’s was led astray was that one of the reference gores—the Bavarian State Library’s—was also a fake (that latter fact has already come out, but this article doesn’t gloss over its importance); and
- Barry Ruderman, Clausen’s boss, guesses that this is only the tip of the forgery iceberg.
The Texas Restorers Who Examined the Fake Globe Gores
Still more coverage of the cancelled auction of the Waldseemüller globe gores that were later identified as fakes, this time from the Houston Chronicle, which pursues the local-interest angle by talking to Michal and and Lindsay Peichl, restorers from Clear Lake, Texas (their firm is Paper Restoration Studio) who were brought in to examine the gores along with other experts. Michal says it didn’t take him long to figure it out:
“My first reaction when I saw the picture was, ‘Oh my God, this is a fake,'” said Michal. “You could tell this was a sheet of paper pulled from a book binding board.
“It was printed on a piece of paper that used to be glued on the back of book and that was a red flag to me because as a forger, if you want to make a fake, that’s where you would go to get a clean sheet of paper.”
[WMS]
Previously: How the James Ford Bell Library Fingered the Fake Waldseemüller Globe Gores; Waldseemüller Auction Cancelled After Experts Suspect Fakery; More on the Waldseemüller Globe Gores Auction; Sixth Waldseemüller Globe Gore to Be Auctioned Next Month.
How the James Ford Bell Library Fingered the Fake Waldseemüller Globe Gores
More on the cancelled auction of the Waldseemüller globe gores from Minneapolis-St. Paul TV station KARE, which looks at the work by the James Ford Bell Library that raised questions about the authenticity of the gores that Christie’s was set to auction last week. And a seriously buried lede: another set of Waldseemüller globe gores may not be authentic either: “During this process, experts also discovered that a copy at the Bavarian State Library in Germany may not be authentic, as well. Ragnow said that copy matches closely with the 2017 Christie’s one.” [WMS]
Previously: Waldseemüller Auction Cancelled After Experts Suspect Fakery; More on the Waldseemüller Globe Gores Auction; Sixth Waldseemüller Globe Gore to Be Auctioned Next Month.
Waldseemüller Auction Cancelled After Experts Suspect Fakery
This is a bombshell. Christie’s has cancelled its upcoming auction of a (supposedly) newly discovered copy of Waldseemüller’s globe gores. Experts found evidence suggesting that the gores were a carefully faked copy of the gores found in the James Ford Bell Library. In today’s New York Times, Michael Blanding (who wrote a book on the Forbes Smiley affair) has the scoop on how the red flags were raised. The auction was supposed to take place on Wednesday; the gores were expected to fetch between £600,000 and £900,000.
Previously: More on the Waldseemüller Globe Gores Auction; Sixth Waldseemüller Globe Gore to Be Auctioned Next Month.
More on the Waldseemüller Globe Gores Auction
When the news broke that Christie’s was auctioning a previously unknown copy of Waldseemüller’s globe gores—the sixth known to still exist—I wondered where it came from and how it was found. Christie’s has now posted an article about the globe gores that answers that question.
Waldseemüller’s set of gores was widely reproduced, yet the example to be offered at Christie’s on 13 December was never cut out—which largely explains why it has survived for hundreds of years. If it had been pasted as intended, Wilson says, ‘wear and tear would surely have seen its demise in the intervening centuries.’
Instead of being cut up, this particular map was used as scrap for bookbinding. It ended up among the belongings of the late British paper restorer Arthur Drescher, who died in 1986 and whose family recently came upon the piece.
Here’s the auction listing. The auction will take place on 13 December; the gores are expected to fetch between £600,000 and £900,000.
Previously: Sixth Waldseemüller Globe Gore to Be Auctioned Next Month.
Yorktown Campaign Map of New York City Being Auctioned
On 5 December Christie’s will auction, as part of a lot of printed books and manuscripts, a map described as “an important manuscript map of New York City prepared by cartographers attached to Rochambeau’s forces during the Yorktown Campaign.” The 63×40-cm ink-and-watercolour map dates from 1781-1782 and is expected to fetch between $150,000 and $200,000. Christie’s item description is quite detailed.
Sixth Waldseemüller Globe Gore to Be Auctioned Next Month
AP reports that Christie’s will be auctioning “a previously unknown copy” of Martin Waldseemüller’s globe gores on 13 December. This would be the sixth known remaining copy of Waldseemüller’s gores, which were designed to form a small globe a few inches across when pasted onto a sphere. They’re a smaller, less-detailed version of Waldseemüller’s famous 1507 world map, and yes, the globe gores have “America” labelled as well.
No word yet on the provenance of this newly discovered sixth gore; the histories of the previous five are well known. The gores are expected to fetch between £600,000 and £900,000. [Tony Campbell]
Previously: Waldseemüller Globe Gore Found; More About Waldseemüller.
Rare 1857 Map of Chicago Being Auctioned
A rare copy of James Palmatary’s 1857 map of Chicago is being auctioned next week, Crain’s reports. Only four copies are known to exist of the map, a bird’s-eye view that depicts the city as it was before the Great Fire; this is the only one in private hands. The remaining surviving copies are held by the Chicago Historical Society, the Library of Congress and the Newberry Library. The map is expected to fetch $20,000 to $30,000. [Tony Campbell]
‘Original’ Disneyland Map to Be Auctioned
An “original,” hand-drawn presentation map of Disneyland is one of nearly a thousand Disney-related artifacts to be auctioned on Sunday by Van Eaton Galleries. From the catalog:
This is the original presentation map of Disneyland that was created by Walt Disney and Herb Ryman in 1953. This map was then the main presentation piece for Roy Disney’s meetings with potential investors in New York, which succeeded in getting Disney the financing from ABC that was necessary to build Disneyland. This same map returned from New York and was displayed at the Disney Studio where it was used by Walt in numerous development meetings throughout the remainder of 1953 and into 1954. Later in 1954, this map received newly inked outlines and additional color, and was used as the first publicly released full-image of Disneyland. The significance of this map in the history of Disneyland cannot be overstated.
The auction ruffled a few feathers when it hit the news last month, partly because of media reports attributing the map to Disney himself, or calling it the original map, which it isn’t. Theme Park Insider notes that “[t]he original concept map of Disneyland, hand-drawn by Herb Ryman in 1953, sits safely in the archives of Walt Disney Imagineering. It’s not for sale and likely never will be.” A post on the Friends of The Walt Disney Family Museum Facebook page goes further, calling the map to be auctioned
a large-format photostat or brownline of Herb Ryman’s original drawing, which is safe and sound in the Walt Disney Imagineering Art Library. Dozens of these were made to pitch the Park to investors and participants. Shame on Van Eaton for knowingly misrepresenting a big photocopy as a valuable artifact worth a million dollars.
In a comment on that post, Van Eaton Galleries defended themselves by clarifying that the map being auctioned is the original presentation map, not Ryman’s original pencil drawing on vellum.
Vellum is a fragile paper, like a tracing paper. It’s not the kind of paper you would take to New York as your main presentation piece. What vellum is exceptionally good for though, is letting light through during the brownline process, as the “Disney historian” mentioned. The vellum pencil drawing was used to transfer the line work to this map, which was then hand colored, inked, mounted to a presentation board, and taken to New York by Roy Disney to pitch to ABC. The vellum pencil drawing was never intended to be the final product, otherwise Ryman would have drawn it directly onto a more durable paper for Roy to take. It was however, used to create the map that we are bringing to auction.
(The New York Times article on the auction was corrected to reflect that distinction. For other coverage, see ABC News and CNN, among many others.)
Update, 27 June: The map sold for $708,000 to an unknown buyer. ABC News, BBC News.
Recent Auctions: Joan Blaeu and Australia, Sam Greer and Vancouver
Joan Blaeu’s Archipelagus Orientalis is to Australia what Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map is to America: a case where a first appearance on a map is referred to as a country’s birth certificate. The 17th-century map included data from Tasman’s voyages and named New Holland (Australia) and New Zealand for the first time. The National Library of Australia is working on conserving its 1663 copy, but an earlier, unrestored version dating from around 1659 recently turned up in an Italian home; earlier this month it was auctioned at Sotheby’s and sold for nearly £250,000. [Tony Campbell]
Meanwhile, at a somewhat more modest scale, an 1884 hand-drawn map of what would later become the tony Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitsilano by colourful local Sam Greer went for C$24,200—five times its estimated price.