The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia  (1886-88)

Published in Sydney with over 700 wood-engraved illustrations were specially commissioned works by leading Australian artists. It was released in 42 separate editions usually bound into three large volumes and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies. Its publication was one of the most significant cultural projects in nineteenth-century Australia. Writers, artists, academics and politicians came together to prepare a book of unprecedented grandeur and ambition, and a publishing company was established to produce and publish it. The seven hundred engravings on steel and wood contained in the Picturesque Atlas were among the finest engravings to be found anywhere in the world at this time.

The Atlas was a collegial project, staffed by a large number of artists and garnering an unusual number of contributors for one work. Lightly supervised by the former Sydney Morning Herald editor Andrew Garran it was lavishly produced at the Wynyard Square headquarters of the Atlas company. It had the services of the Melburnian journalist and public figure James Smith who wrote much of the Victorian and Tasmanian material, and W.H. Traill wrote extensively about Queensland. It was not, of course, an Atlas is the usual sense of the word, maps playing a comparatively minor role. But use of Atlas in the title, Hughes-d'Aeth notes, gave a sense of the scale of the publication both in terms of comprehensiveness and format. As the author points out, calling it an Atlas carries a promise of the exactitude of the relationship between the subject and its representation, and also bears a sense of the acquisitiveness that shadows the imperial phase of cartography.

There were only thirty maps in the Atlas's 800 pages, but there were hundreds of pictures. This is where much of the ideological work of the Atlas was completed and this is where Paper Nation concentrates its analysis. Its first task is to unravel the linguistic ball of string that is the word 'picturesque'. Though Humphrey Repton and Uvedale Price had their opinions, Hughes-d'Aeth is quite right to pick William Gilpin out of the line-up of suspicious aesthetes, for it was he who really popularised the idea of travelling in search of picturesque views. Paper Nation's dissection of the term picturesque is particularly aware of the term's adaptation to colonial usage, and its mutations through time. The picturesque took on an increasingly acquisitive edge, as admiration of the beauty of the land was joined by a concern to exploit it. A 'deep reverence for production' can be seen in the Picturesque Atlas's many illustrations of mines, factories and agricultural processes. The slag heaps of a mine were now as 'picturesque' as a fern-filled valley, but this does mean that the term was evacuated of all meaning. Rather the aesthetic appropriation of the land and its material exploitation were part of a continuum of colonial attitudes, and it was the duty of the Picturesque Atlas to affirm and re-affirm the rightness of European habitation and progress. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (7)

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1886 Picturesque Atlas Large Antique Rainfall Map of New South Wales, Australia

1886 Picturesque Atlas Large Antique Rainfall Map of New South Wales, Australia

  • Title Map of New South Wales showing Average Annual Rainfall
  • Ref  :  50340
  • Size: 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
  • Date : 1886
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description: 
This large fine lithograph layered coloured original map was published in the extremely significant Australian & New Zealand Australian & New Zealand publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia between 1886-88. 

The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia was published in Sydney between 1886-88. Many of its over 700 wood-engraved illustrations were specially commissioned works by leading Australian artists. It was released in 42 separate editions usually bound into three large volumes and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: -  Original
Colors used: -  Blue, yellow, pink, green
General color appearance: -  Authentic
Paper size: - 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

$175.00 USD
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1888 Pic Atlas Large Antique Map of NSW, Australia Political & Local Borders

1888 Pic Atlas Large Antique Map of NSW, Australia Political & Local Borders

  • Title Map of New South Wales Showing Territorial Divisions, Land Board Districts and Land Districts
  • Ref  :  50337
  • Size: 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
  • Date : 1886
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description: 
This large fine lithograph layered coloured original map was published in the extremely significant Australian & New Zealand Australian & New Zealand publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia between 1886-88. 

The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia was published in Sydney between 1886-88. Many of its over 700 wood-engraved illustrations were specially commissioned works by leading Australian artists. It was released in 42 separate editions usually bound into three large volumes and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: -  Original
Colors used: -  Blue, yellow, pink, green
General color appearance: -  Authentic
Paper size: - 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

$175.00 USD
More Info
1888 Pic Atlas Scally Large Antique Map of Australia

1888 Pic Atlas Scally Large Antique Map of Australia

Description: 
This large steel-plate engraved original antique lithograph map of Australia - engraved by Alex J Scally in 1888, dated at the foot of the map - was published in The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, 1886-88. A beautiful large pre-federation antique map of Australia, highly detailed in fine condition.

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: -  Original
Colors used: -  Yellow, pink, green, blue
General color appearance: - Authentic  
Paper size: - 25 1/2in x 17in (650mm x 430mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

$275.00 USD
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1888 Picturesque Atlas Large Antique Map of New South Wales, Australia

1888 Picturesque Atlas Large Antique Map of New South Wales, Australia

Description: 
This large fine lithograph layered coloured original map was published in the extremely significant Australian & New Zealand Australian & New Zealand publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia between 1886-88. 

The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia was published in Sydney between 1886-88. Many of its over 700 wood-engraved illustrations were specially commissioned works by leading Australian artists. It was released in 42 separate editions usually bound into three large volumes and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: -  
Colors used: -  
General color appearance: -  
Paper size: - 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
Plate size: - 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

 

$175.00 USD
More Info
1888 Picturesque Atlas Large Antique Map of Western Australia

1888 Picturesque Atlas Large Antique Map of Western Australia

  • Title Map of New South Wales Showing Territorial Divisions, Land Board Districts and Land Districts
  • Ref  :  50337
  • Size: 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
  • Date : 1886
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description: 
This large fine lithograph layered coloured original map was published in the extremely significant Australian & New Zealand Australian & New Zealand publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia between 1886-88. 

The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia was published in Sydney between 1886-88. Many of its over 700 wood-engraved illustrations were specially commissioned works by leading Australian artists. It was released in 42 separate editions usually bound into three large volumes and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: -  Original
Colors used: -  Blue, yellow, pink, green
General color appearance: -  Authentic
Paper size: - 26in x 18in (660mm x 446mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

$175.00 USD
More Info
1888 Picturesque Atlas of Australia Large Antique Railway Map of Queensland

1888 Picturesque Atlas of Australia Large Antique Railway Map of Queensland

Description: 
This very large fine original antique lithograph layered coloured map of Queensland showing the extent of Railway and postal lines, was engraved in 1888 - the date is engraved in the title - with index page - by Alex J Scally - was published in the extremely significant Australian & New Zealand publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia between 1886-88. 

These maps were some of the best maps published at the time in the "Modern" look. The colour is bright, the engraving extremely fine and the paper heavy and stable.

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: - Original  
Colors used: - Blue, red  
General color appearance: - Authentic  
Paper size: - 34in x 26in (865mm x 660mm)
Plate size: - 34in x 26in (865mm x 660mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Folds as issued
Verso: - None

$275.00 USD
More Info
1888 Picturesque Australia Antique Map of Sydney under Gov. Phillip in 1792

1888 Picturesque Australia Antique Map of Sydney under Gov. Phillip in 1792

  • Title : A Survey of The Settlement in New South Wales New Holland
  • Ref #:  22272
  • Size: 17in x 12in (430mm x 305mm)
  • Date : 1888
  • Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description: 
This large lithograph original antique map of the first settlements in Sydney Town in 1792 - with inset text by Governor Phillip - was engraved in 1888 and was published in the extremely significant Australian & New Zealand publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia between 1886-88

These maps were some of the best maps published at the time in the "Modern" look. The colour is bright, the engraving extremely fine and the paper heavy and stable.

The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia was published in Sydney between 1886-88. Many of its over 700 wood-engraved illustrations were specially commissioned works by leading Australian artists. 
It was released in 42 separate editions usually bound into three large volumes and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies.

Its publication was one of the most significant cultural projects in nineteenth-century Australia. Writers, artists, academics and politicians came together to prepare a book of unprecedented grandeur and ambition, and a publishing company was established to produce and publish it. The seven hundred engravings on steel and wood contained in the Picturesque Atlas were among the finest engravings to be found anywhere in the world at this time.

The Atlas was a collegial project, staffed by a large number of artists and garnering an unusual number of contributors for one work. Lightly supervised by the former Sydney Morning Herald editor Andrew Garran it was lavishly produced at the Wynyard Square headquarters of the Atlas company. It had the services of the Melburnian journalist and public figure James Smith who wrote much of the Victorian and Tasmanian material, and W.H. Traill wrote extensively about Queensland. It was not, of course, an Atlas is the usual sense of the word, maps playing a comparatively minor role. But use of Atlas in the title, Hughes-d'Aeth notes, gave a sense of the scale of the publication both in terms of comprehensiveness and format. As the author points out, calling it an Atlas carries a promise of the exactitude of the relationship between the subject and its representation, and also bears a sense of the acquisitiveness that shadows the imperial phase of cartography.

There were only thirty maps in the Atlas's 800 pages, but there were hundreds of pictures. This is where much of the ideological work of the Atlas was completed and this is where Paper Nation concentrates its analysis. Its first task is to unravel the linguistic ball of string that is the word 'picturesque'. Though Humphrey Repton and Uvedale Price had their opinions, Hughes-d'Aeth is quite right to pick William Gilpin out of the line-up of suspicious aesthetes, for it was he who really popularised the idea of travelling in search of picturesque views.Paper Nation's dissection of the term picturesque is particularly aware of the term's adaptation to colonial usage, and its mutations through time. The picturesque took on an increasingly acquisitive edge, as admiration of the beauty of the land was joined by a concern to exploit it. A 'deep reverence for production' can be seen in the Picturesque Atlas's many illustrations of mines, factories and agricultural processes. The slag heaps of a mine were now as 'picturesque' as a fern-filled valley, but this does mean that the term was evacuated of all meaning. Rather the aesthetic appropriation of the land and its material exploitation were part of a continuum of colonial attitudes, and it was the duty of the Picturesque Atlas to affirm and re-affirm the rightness of European habitation and progress. (Ref: M&B; Tooley)

General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Light & stable
Paper color: - White
Age of map color: -  
Colors used: -   
General color appearance: -   
Paper size: - 17in x 12in (430mm x 305mm)
Plate size: - 17in x 12in (430mm x 305mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Folds as issued
Verso: - None

$125.00 USD
More Info