Catalog Archive
Auction 161, Lot 280

Gorgeous Early Map of Florida Territory

"Map of Florida", Tanner, Henry Schenck

Subject: Florida

Period: 1823 (dated)

Publication: American Atlas

Color: Hand Color

Size:
21.2 x 26.8 inches
53.8 x 68.1 cm
Download High Resolution Image
(or just click on image to launch the Zoom viewer)

This large, attractive map was published in Tanner's first edition American Atlas, which is considered one of the finest American atlases ever published. It was issued around the time that the Florida Territory was officially established as a possession of the United States. Most of the settlements, including St. Augustine, are located in the northern part of the territory, while the southern portion of the peninsula, under Seminole control, is bereft of European presence. It depicts only four counties: Escambia, Jackson, Duval, and a massive St. Johns. The map identifies "Cape Florida Settlement" near present-day Miami and locates several old Spanish land grants including Arredondo and Miranda. It is filled with descriptive notes including "Extensive Inundated Region covered with Pine and Hummock Islands of all sizes and generally called The Ever Glades."

Henry Schenck Tanner was one of the most productive and successful cartographic publishers of the early nineteenth century, a period known as the golden age of American cartography. The large, beautifully engraved maps from this atlas were considered among the "most splendid works of the kind ever executed in this country," as reported in the United States Gazette (Philadelphia) in 1823.

References: Phillips (Atlases) #4462-18.

Condition: B+

Original color on a sheet that has been professionally backed with tissue to reinforce and repair numerous fold separations and several small tears in unengraved areas of the map.

Estimate: $2,000 - $2,300

Sold for: $2,100

Closed on 2/8/2017

Archived