"By presenting each territory as an individual subject rather than parts of a unified whole, they suggest the nascent idea of an incremental and expanding British dominion. Their unprecedented detail evidences England's desire for self-defense in the years before the Spanish Armada."
"Beyond its royal provenance, the object also features exquisite gild work by the mysterious Medallion Binder surrounding Bloody Mary's monogrammed coat of arms, imbuing this rare secular book in the devoutly Catholic monarch's collection with a befitting bit of godliness."
"Barry Lawrence Ruderman snagged this atlas in its auction debut two years ago for $227,000-against a high estimate of £20,000 ($40,059). 'I was prepared to pay a lot more,' Alex Clausen, the firm's president, told me over the phone."
A rare 460-year-old copy of Polydore Vergil's Anglica Historia atlas, formerly owned by Queen Mary I, will be offered for $1.6 million at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair by San Diego-based dealer Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. The atlas features exquisite gilt work and Mary I's monogrammed coat of arms. Significantly, it contains the earliest known separate depictions of the U.K. and relevant territories, presenting each as individual subjects rather than unified parts, suggesting nascent ideas of expanding British dominion. This unprecedented detail reflects England's strategic interests before the Spanish Armada. An export ban restricts buyers to keeping the atlas in the U.K. or allowing institutional acquisition.
Read at Artnet News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]