Catalogues

“Every hand’s a winner!” – A catalogue of 57 decks of playing cards from c1630-1991, including a pack unknown until 2016, a gorgeous set of embroidered silk brocade cards, Ganjifa cards, and several English seventeenth century decks.

Our latest catalogue offers a very select group of the earliest, the most important, and fiendishly rare, maps, atlases, and travel accounts, which are the first printed attempts by European commentators and adventurers, to depict their world, and the emerging outline of the Americas.

‘From Sea to Shining Sea’, the Petros G. Pelos Collection of exceptionally rare first-hand printed and manuscript travel accounts, atlases, portfolios, and governmental proclamations.

Offered together as a single entity, these 100 items not only reflect the emerging shape of the United States, from the end of the Revolutionary War to the beginning of the Civil War, but were fundamentally instrumental in creating its identity.

A cartographic voyage across time and space.

The William B. Ginsberg collection of World Maps; an epitome of the most beautiful, powerful, and influential cartographical images of the 15th and 16^th centuries. The earliest printed maps condensed and edited information from three “traditions” of map-making: Christian iconography, classical cartography, and contemporary charts. Ginsberg’s collection encapsulates the subtle metamorphosis of this amalgam of art and science, myth and metaphor, discovery and design, in nineteen maps: from the world map of the ‘Rudimentum novitiorum’ (1475), the earliest printed map, in magnificent original hand-colour; to the largest Italian world map published in the 16^th century, Giuseppe Rosaccio’s ‘Universale Descrittione di Tuto il Mondo’ (1657).

A selection of atlases, maps and globes Made in Great Britain, Made in Heaven, and Made Down Under.

Whether alone or in teams, for pleasure or profit, sporting or seated, games have been an ever-present feature of every civilization. During the eighteenth century, not only were industrial advances making large-scale printing easier, but they were also generating something that had never before been available to the majority of society: leisure time. Paired with growing literacy rates across society and greater understanding of the importance of childhood education, this gave birth to a wave of new and unique games, especially in the form of jigsaw puzzles, playing cards, and board games.

Playing cards is, in many ways, a hallmark of civilisation. Like maps and money, a deck of cards is a way of representing an entire value system and an understanding of human nature on paper. A game of cards embodies the inherent unpredictability of life, allowing us to grapple with the uncertainties, directing them towards our own ends. At the card table, when the hands are dealt, all men are temporarily equal; it is how they choose to play those cards that determines who will draw ahead. The players are required to practice both strategic and emotional discipline, and one’s reaction to a bad hand or a sudden windfall can reveal much about his temperament and priorities. As in cards, so in life.

A new catalogue focusing on celestial cartography, a selection of items that show how humans have charted the heavens and marked time by the light of the stars for over 500 years.

We are delighted to present our latest catalogue: Hollar – comprising a single-owner collection of works by the master etcher: from maps, topographical views, and architectural drawings, to portraits, records of the latest fashion, and studies of animals.

Our latest catalogue in Chinese: 东游记 – Journey to the East; exploring the attempts of the English, Dutch, and French, to dominate and control the lucrative Spice Trade.