Antique Map of the World on Mercator's Projection, Black's General Atlas, 1870

About this sheet

An antique map of the world on Mercator's projection, engraved on steel for Black's General Atlas of the World and published in Edinburgh by A. and C. Black in 1870. The sheet covers the whole globe in a single rectangular frame, the projection that seafarers had relied upon since the sixteenth century because a straight line drawn across it holds a constant compass bearing. It therefore sets out the continents as they stood at the close of the great age of exploration, the political divisions and colonial possessions recognised in 1870, and the ruled graticule of latitude and longitude on which the projection depends. The world map on Mercator's projection was the plate a Victorian reader turned to first, the one that carried the routes of trade, the sea lanes and the reach of empire across a single opening of the atlas, and it remains the most widely collected form of nineteenth century world map. The engraving is in fine steel line with original hand colour, and the large format makes it an obvious centrepiece for a study, a library or an office wall.

Black's General Atlas of the World was the standard British household atlas of the middle nineteenth century, issued in Edinburgh by the publishing house of Adam and Charles Black, the firm better known to most readers as the publisher of Sir Walter Scott and of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its maps were engraved on steel, most of them under the direction of the Edinburgh cartographer John Bartholomew, whose clear lettering and restrained hill shading gave the atlas a legibility that its heavier rivals lacked. Successive issues were revised as boundaries moved and railways spread, so a sheet from Black's records the world as an educated Victorian reader understood it in the year the plate was printed.

Sheets from this atlas are sought after today both as reference cartography and as decorative material, the generous folio format suiting a wall quite as readily as a portfolio. Hung as a pair or a group, the plates make a handsome and genuinely informative wall.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with the centre fold as issued, light toning and a few small spots in the margins; the map itself is clean.

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.