Antique Isotherm and Isobar Map of the Americas in Panels, 1916
€ 65
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1916
Publisher
Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna
Technique
Chromolithograph
Coloring
Printed color
Sheet size
33 × 24.5 cm (13.0 × 9.6 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-06668-37
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the top edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left and top right corners. Center fold, as issued.
About this sheet
This original antique thematic map was printed in color by the Bibliographisches Institut for Meyers Physikalischer Handatlas. The sheet shows the Americas, January and July isotherms and isobars. It is lettered on the stone in German, KARTE DER ISOTHERMEN UND ISOBAREN VON AMERIKA. What makes it worth hanging: four panels covering both Americas from the Arctic to Cape Horn, the isotherms in red and the isobars in fine black.
The map comes from Meyers Physikalischer Handatlas, fifty one maps of oceanography, morphology, geology, climatology, plant and animal geography and ethnology, published by the Bibliographisches Institut in Leipzig and Vienna in 1916. The atlas was the physical geography companion to Meyers Grosses Konversations-Lexikon, the great German encyclopedia of the period, and it was assembled from the best specialist sources the house could reach, among them the Berghaus physical atlas, Alexander Supan, Julius Hann and Oscar Drude. The Bibliographisches Institut, founded by Joseph Meyer at Gotha in 1826 and based in Leipzig from 1874, ran its own lithographic and cartographic department, which is why the color register is so close and the lettering stays legible at this scale.
A thematic map of this kind does something a political map cannot. It takes one idea, the temperature of the sea, the age of the rocks, the spread of a plant family or a people, and lays it over the whole of the Americas in color, so the pattern reads from across a room. The 1916 date puts the sheet at the end of the long German tradition of physical cartography that began with Heinrich Berghaus, and it records the world as German science understood it on the eve of the modern surveys. Framed in a plain dark molding with a generous off white mat it hangs well in a study, a library, a hallway or an office, and it groups handsomely with other sheets from the same atlas because they share a format and a palette.
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the top edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left and top right corners. Center fold, as issued.
This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
