Maps make their mark with prices far beyond estimates

Focusing on south-east Asia, a 90-lot map section in an Essex sale comprised the extraordinarily successful first portion of a collection of maps and charts assembled by Christopher Beresford-Jones.

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Ian McKay

A 17th century chart of the Philippines by Sir Robert Dudley, illegitimate son of one of Elizabeth I’s favourites, the Earl of Leicester, and creator during his long residence in Italy of the monumental maritime atlas known in English as ‘Secrets of the Sea’. It sold for £15,000 at Reeman Dansie.

They were offered in the 1400-lot September 24-25 auction held by Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) of Colchester – with a second portion to be sold on November 20.

A rare copy of a very famous early map of the Philippines that sold for some 10 times the high estimate, £260,000, was the focus of a news story in ATG No 2411.

Published in Manila in 1734 and the work of Pedro de Murillo Velarde, it was the undoubted highlight of the auction.

Another notable success was a late- 18th century New and Correct Chart of the Straits of Malacca, published in 1753 by Mount & Page.

A three-sheet map with overall dimensions of around 2ft 3in x 4ft 10in (70cm x 1.47m), it bore an estimate of around £150-250 but sold instead for £33,000 – and plenty of other maps brought sums far, far in excess of estimate.

A copy of Sir Robert Dudley’s Carta Particolare dell Isole Filipines e di Luzon, for example, was estimated at £500-700 but sold for £15,000, while Dudley’s …Malacca con la Costa made £11,500 rather than the suggested £100-150.

These are maps or charts from his monumental and nowadays very rare and costly sea atlas, Dell’ Arcano del Mare, first published in Florence in the 1640s and re-issued in 1661.