MAP 236
Antique 1765 Dutch Map by Isaak Trion showing that California is NOT an Island!
Map Title:
Kaart van het Westelyk Gedeelte van Nieuw Mexico en van California
Volgens de Laatste Ontdekkingen der Jesuiten en andern. te Amsterdam by Isaak Trion. MDCCLXV.
Translates (from Dutch) as:
Map of Western New Mexico and CaliforniaAccording to the Last Discoveries of the Jesuits and others. in Amsterdam by Isaac Trion. MDCCLXV [1765]
“Description: An interesting transitional map between Kino and Garcés showing the Spanish borderlands in the California-Arizona region (including present-day southern Arizona), from Tirion's Nieuwe en beknopte hand-atlas. A plethora of Jesuit missions in present-day Arizona and northwest Mexico is shown on the eve of the expulsion. Casa Grande on the Gila River is located, and California is shown to above San Diego, with a rather ill-configured grouping of the Channel Islands.”
NOTE:
I fell (again) last week and will be 87 (God willing!) in three weeks. My wife (and I) are anxious to find homes for the treasures we have collected in our 56 years of marriage.
The day after I fell, I offered this map to an Auction House for consignment. They MAY list it and might sell it (hammer price) for $800. IF they do that: (a) the buyer will have to pay 25% more: $1,000, and (b) I will get 10% less: $720!
Do you want to make an offer (e.g. $795) that – even with eBay’s fees -- is fair – and saves YOU some money?
If you are at all interested, please read the listing below. There is much to be learned and I worked collecting this information.
Special Features:
Guest Editor:
I, Harald Leuba, am listing this map on eBay with the permission of the eBay account holder, my wife of 56 years, Nancy Kingsbury, aka "Showjudge".
She is worried about how to find homes for our "stuff" when I die -- > if I die before her.
We have enjoyed living with this map in our collection, but as I age, (I am now 86), I feel that I ought to protect IT from becoming lost in some 2nd hand store and, more importantly, I need to protect Nancy from having to cope with how to harvest its reasonable value in a time of personal stress.
[In other words: We are downsizing!]
......
I bought this map from John Faupel, Antique Atlas, East Grinstead, UK some 35 years ago. It was his # 257 in catalog 95.
I have misplaced John's catalog.
However: (a) John titled it:
TIRION, I Kaart van het Westelyk Gedeelte van Nieuw Mexico en van California, Volgens Amsterdam 1765
And: it SAYS on the map itself:
Kaart van het Westelyk Gedeelte van Nieuw Mexico en van California
Volgens de Laatste Ontdekkingen der Jesuiten en andern. te Amsterdam by Isaak Trion. MDCCLXV
Which translates (from Dutch) as:
Map of Western New Mexico and CaliforniaAccording to the Last Discoveries of the Jesuits and others. in Amsterdam by Isaac Trion. MDCCLXV [1765]
>>>
AbeBooks has a copy here in the USA for $850. Framed
And a copy in the Netherlands for $585.47 described as:
“Antique map of California. Title, publisher's imprint and date lower left. Scale sticks top left. Hand-coloured copper engraving, published in Amsterdam in 1765 by Isaak Tirion. Dimensions (picture): 33 x 35 cm.” [See my photo # X, a screen shot of this map.]
And a copy in Italy for $552.33 described as:
No legatura. Condition: ottime. Una delle migliori mappe della metà del XVIII secolo della baia californiana. La mappa mostra le missioni sulla baia; mal riportate le Isole del Canale, San Diego e San Pedro. Preziosi dettagli nei pressi del Gila, nell'Arizona meridionale.
Which translates (Italian) as:No binding. Condition: excellent. One of the best mid-18th century maps of the California Bay. The map
shows the missions on the bay; misreported the Channel Islands, San Diego and San Pedro. Precious details near the Gila in southern Arizona.
And a another copy in the USA for $800.00 described as:
“Engraved hand-colored map, matted and framed.
“Copper-engraved map (13 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.; 35 x 36.8 cm, sight) of Baja California and Sonora, bounded on the north by the Colorado and Gila Rivers and approximately Mozatlan in the south; several folds as issued. Matted and enclosed in mylar. (6.5B.2C) A scarce and important eighteenth-century map detailing the Spanish-Mexican borderlands in the California region. It focuses on the Gulf of California, Baja California, parts of Southern California including Cape San Diego (site of the modern city) and present-day Arizona. The Peninsula and Sonora are dotted with towns, indigenous villages, Jesuit missions, Spanish garrisons, watering places ("plaats"), and some offshore detail, with mountain ranges rendered in profile. Cartographically this map falls between the seminal mapping of Father Kino at the end of the 17th century, which reattached insular California to the mainland, and the important discoveries of the Dominguez-Escalante expedition (1775). The various Jesuit settlements are identified with vignettes of churches, particularly on the Baja Peninsula and the Mexican mainland. Of note is the site identified by Father Kino as the Casa Grande on the Gila River. Although marked as a mission here, it is in fact a Native American Indian ruin of architectural enormity now protected by the National Park Service. [emphasis added]
“Tirion was a Dutch publisher who is chiefly known for his maps and atlases. This map was included in his his 3-volume Hedendaagsche Historie, of Tegenwoordige Staat van Amerika (1766-1769)-a history of the Present States of America, with a substantial portion devoted to Spanish settlements in North and South America. REFERENCE: Cf. Sabin 31212.
My comment:
In Chicago, in the spring and summer of 1942, I was hospitalized three weeks out of every four with allergies and debilitating asthma. Upon Doctors’ advice my parents took the family to Phoenix, AZ in October 1942, where I was expected to die “comfortably” in the driver climate. As it happened, I had my last attack of asthma as we were driving across a bridge over the Mississippi River. Before we got to Phoenix, Dad signed a contract on a 2 ½ acre property at 19th St and East Roosevelt. Playing in the dirt there, I discovered that it was littered with hundreds of pottery chards etc. Just a few hundred yards due North of Casa Grande, “our” acreage had been their “community dump”!
…
And another AbeBooks copy in the USA for $850.00 described, simply, as:
Engraved hand-colored map, matted and framed.
>>>
Donald A. Heald has a copy for $950.00 described as:
“Amsterdam: Isaak Tirion, 1765. Copper-engraved map, with full original colour, in excellent condition. Sheet size: 16 x 19 inches.
“A very attractive and detailed map of the American Southwest and Baja California, by a respected Amsterdam cartographer.
“This highly detailed map, with beautiful full original colour embraces the area from what is now central Arizona and southern California down to Sonora and the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The map depicts the region during an especially fascinating time in its development. The Baja Peninsula and Sonora are shown to be dotted with Spanish garrisons and Jesuit missions established in the wake of Father Eusebio Kino who explored the area in the late 1600s. Kino was also the first cartographer to definitively establish that California is not an island, as previously thought. [Emhasis added.]
“The notations on the map refer to various episodes in the exploration of the region. The shores of the Peninsula and the Sea of Cortés are charted in finely assured detail as are the courses of the lower Colorado and Gila Rivers, the latter running near the present-day site of Phoenix, Arizona. With reference to what is now known as southern California, the map depicts the Channel Islands, and extends past "Kaap St. Diego" up towards modern-day Los Angeles, however the shape of the coastline seems to be based more on conjecture than on actual discovery. The first mission in Alta California, San Diego (founded 1769), was yet to be established, and accurate charting of the region by such figures as the Comte de La Pérouse were still to occur a generation into the future. The present map was included in Tirion's well-regarded Nieuwe en Beknopte Hand-Atlas.
“Lowery Collection, 498; Phillips, A List of Maps of America, p.494 and Atlases, 600-102; Wheat, TransMississippi West, 148; Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America, 608.”
>>>>
BIBLIO has a full color copy for $850.
IberLibro has an uncolored copy for 768.31 Euro ($822.01)
GEOGRAPHICUS has sold their copy.
>>>>
Barry Lawrence Ruderman, Antique Maps Inc. has a copy of this map ($875), which they describe as:
“Cartographer: Issak Trion
“Title: Kaart van het Westelyk Gedeelte van Nieuw Mexico en van California . . . MDCCLXV
“Publication Place/Date: Amsterdam / 1765
“Image Dimensions: 14 x 13 inches
“Color: Hand Colored
“Condition: VG+
“Description:
“One of the Earliest Obtainable Maps of Southern California and Baja California
“Fine old color example of this early map of Baja California and parts of Alta California, Arizona and Sonora.
“Isaac Tirion's map of Baja California is one of the best mid-18th century maps of Southern California, Baja California and parts of Arizona and Sonora. Issued 4 years prior to the establishment of the first Spanish Mission in Alta California (San Diego) and based in large part on the work of Ferdinando Consag, the map provides one of the earliest large format attempts to map this still mysterious and unsettled region north of Baja California, along with the then Jesuit regions of Baja California and Sonora. The map is one of the last to focus on the region before the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768.
Southern California & Arizona
“Tirion's map extends north to include Pt. Conception (just west of Santa Barbara), the Channel Islands, St (San) Pedro, Kaap St. (San) Diego), Eil St. Catarina (Catalina) and Ensenada de la Virgines (Ensenada, Baja Norte).
“To the east, the map extends north along the Colorado and east along the Gila to include Casa Grande and the Phoenix and Tucson areas. The references to 1699 reflect the visit of Fra. Eusebio Francisco Kino to the region in 1699, at which point he identified the ruins of the Hohokam Villages in the region.
Baja California & Sonora
“Better known to the Spanish were the lands of Baja California and Sonora, which reflect the establishment of numerous Spanish Missions. The importance of locating water in this region is quite clearly noted, with roughly 10 different "Water Plaatz" and similar notes shown on the eastern coastline of Baja California, on the Sea of Cortez.
“Below Los Virginos (Tres Virgenes Volcano), there is a note regarding Ferdinando Consag's having witnessed the eruption of the Volcano in 1746, on his first visit to the region. A bit further north, a note in Dutch identifies the Cantons (regions) of the non-believers, another note derived from Jesuit sources.
“One of the best mid-18th century maps for California and Baja Collectors and certainly the most ambitious commercial effort to map the region. An essential map for Baja, Arizona and Southern California collectors.”
My Comment:
If you are interested enough in maps to be considering buying an Original Antique, you know that the plates for antique maps were often reused/reprinted/recycled/revised and that there are many different (related) versions available today. You will also know that maps were not usually stand-alone images. They appeared in bibles, histories, and even, as here, in atlases!
Last month, Barry Ruderman came to our house to look at our maps with a view to his acquiring the whole collection. He was warmly professional and lived up to his reputation for expertise. He said that our maps had been well cared for and were in good condition.
He put an estimated market value on this map of $875
--> if he were to offer it for sale in his business.
{Of course, since he has to make a profit in his business, he did not offer us that much!}
Take a look and Buy it Now, or make an offer.
Frankly, I think our map is the best looking sample of this Kaart available today!
Photo #1 is the front of our map
Photo #2 is the back of our map (the color bleed through is telltale evidence that the color was done LONG AGO.)
Photo #3, #4, #5, #6, #7 & #8 are of other copies of tie map that are for sale on the internet today, or that have been listed as SOLD. >> These illustrate the variety of “coloring” that has been done,
Photo #9 & #10 are free downloads from the Barry Lawrence Ruderman Archives.
.....
Our map is in excellent original condition: no stains or stray marks, no cuts or tears; no thin spots!
The margins are full. {Yes, “full”, but that includes the lower left being the least “full” because of loss during removal from the Atlas.}
The map has “original” [period] outline color.
Although published folded, our map lies flat!
The map surface is lovely and bright and clean; No offsetting or darkening.
We have cared for this map my holding it flat, unfolded, on a sheet of poster board wrapped with a layer of Saran Wrap.
Our map has not been “restored” or “repaired”, nor has it required any intervention; it is still in as issued condition!
Please help us find a new home for this treasure.
Thank you for looking,
Harald & Nancy
P.S. Inflation? NO! When I bought my first map, there was silver in our US coinage. When I was in college, I could buy a gallon of gas for a silver quarter and mail a letter home for 4ç.
TODAY I can buy a 1.33 gallons gas for the value of that silver quarter, but postage is now 60ç.
Antique maps have doubled in price in the last ten years. Are they a store of value?
I think so, but whether they are or not, they can be a permanent source of pleasure.
P.P.S We are using the proceeds of this sale, not to add “dollars” to our bank account, but to support local charities (to help neighbors who have lost income due to Covid)!
We hope you enjoy your purchase and have warm feelings from having helped others.