Tim Bryars Ltd

Banks, John Henry, & Co.: A Balloon View of London  [London], published by Edward Stanford, May 10th 1859

Map, Steel engraving, 71 x 112 cms, original hand-colour, dissected into 40 sheets and laid on linen as issued, folding into green cloth covers, printed publisher's label: View of London shewing the public buildings, parks, palaces, squares, streets, railway stations &c.

This is the fifth state of the plate, which Stanford had purchased from Banks & Co. He moved the Crystal Palace from its original location to Sydenham, and has inserted a small balloon on the southern horizon. Banks originally issued the plan on the opening day of the Great Exhibition, 1851. Unlike more impressionistic balloon views issued later by the Illustrated London News and The Graphic, Banks' view was sold separately, priced one Guinea. The wealth of carefully but unobtrusively labelled detail, even south of the river, is quite extraordinary. It is the only map-view included by Hyde in his carto-bibliography., Hyde, Printed Maps of Victorian London, No. 3 (5).

£2500

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