Bird’s‑eye views

The map, atlas and rare book dealer Daniel Crouch has scored a major sale shortly after setting up on his own in Oxford at the end of last year, selling a very rare map of Venice — the only known example not already in a museum — to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for ​“a seven-figure sum”.

The huge woodcut map was made in 1500 and presents a birds-eye view of La Serenissima. Its creator, Jacopo de Barbari, documented every building, canal and open square by dint of climbing every bell tower in the city: so exceptional was the result that it was the first image ever to be copyrighted.

The map goes on show in Minneapolis from February 6 in its exhibition ​‘Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting’, which includes the two Titians from the collection of the Duke of Sutherland. One, ​“Diana and Actaeon”, was bought by the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland for £50m; the other, ​“Diana and Callisto” is coming up for sale at the same price in December 2012.

Georgina Adam is editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper.