Engraving of Alejandro Selkirk Island, Juan Fernández-archipel, Chile, 1749

Name: Engraving of Alejandro Selkirk Island, Juan Fernández-archipel, Chile, 1749
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BGI-00736
Price: 245 USD
Availability: InStock

$245

€220 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1749
Kind: Maps
Size: 27 × 41.5 cm (10.6 × 16.3 in)
Condition: Fair. General age-related toning. Tape on upper corners. Minor defects and some creasing, please study image carefully.
Period: Colonial America
Places: Chile
Reference: BGI-00736

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

Two views of Mas a Fuera, the island now called Alejandro Selkirk, in the Juan Fernandez group off Chile, an original copper engraving lettered in French and Dutch. The upper view is "Vue de la Cote du N.E. de Masa-Fuero", and the lower "Vue de la Cote Occidentale de Masa-Fuero a la distance de quatre Milles". The sheet comes from the Dutch edition of George Anson's voyage, Reize rondsom de Werreld, published in 1749.

The upper panel shows the tall, wooded north east coast of the island, with white ravines running down the steep slope and a ship at the right. The lower panel shows the bare, flat-topped western side, seen from four miles off, with a ship at the left. The island rises as a single dark mass from the sea in both views, with a sky of billowing cloud above.

Such coastal profiles were drawn so that navigators could recognize a landfall. Anson's ships made their way to the Juan Fernandez islands in 1741 to recover from the passage around Cape Horn, and Mas a Fuera was one of the group they sighted.

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