Starling, Western Africa Plate XXVII — Family Cabinet Atlas, 1831, Hand-Colored
$ 137.28
Description
Starling, Western Africa Plate XXVII — Family Cabinet Atlas, 1831, Hand-Colored. Plate XXVII from Thomas Starling's Family Cabinet Atlas, published by Edward Bull in London between 1831 and 1834. Original period hand-coloring highlights political boundaries in wash tones that have held for nearly two centuries. Plate XXVII from Thomas Starling's Family Cabinet Atlas, published by Edward Bull in London between 1831 and 1834. This steel-engraved miniature map of Western Africa captures the pre-Scramble coastline in fine detail while the interior remained largely unmapped by European cartographers — a snapshot of geographic knowledge at the threshold of African exploration. Original period hand-coloring highlights political boundaries in wash tones that have held for nearly two centuries. The engraving: Steel-engraved by Thomas Starling (FRGS 1833), the dominant miniature-cartography engraver of 1820s-40s London. Micro-printing on the gazetteer verso remains fully legible at nearly 200 years old — a hallmark of Starling's technical precision at this scale. The atlas: The Family Cabinet Atlas was 'Specially Patronized' by William IV and Queen Adelaide, containing roughly 50 hand-colored maps with facing-page gazetteers indexing over 40,000 place names. Designed as a portable reference that packed comprehensive geographic data into the smallest possible format. The subject: Pre-colonial West Africa commands a consistent collector premium over other Starling regional plates, drawing interest from Africana collectors, exploration-history enthusiasts, and colonial-history scholars. Condition: Very good for its age — approximately 190 years old on wove paper with age-appropriate toning and original hand-color retaining vivid wash tones. A collectible window into early 19th-century European cartography of West Africa, at a fraction of the cost of a complete atlas ($1,250+ for first editions). Included: Original leaf with map recto and gazetteer verso, unframed.
