Africa

25x39 cm

Two maps on one plate:

AFRICA, NORTH PART.
AFRICA, SOUTH PART.
Engraved by S. Hall, Bury Str.^t Bloomsbury.

Engraved by Selina Hall and published in Black’s General Atlas: a series of fifty-four maps from the latest and most authentic sources engraved on steel in the first style of the art…Adam & Charles Black London 1844.
Finely engraved on steel, this series of maps are often attributed to Sidney Hall (1788-1831), engraver, cartographer and copperplate printer (and almost certainly the first engraver to use steel plates for map engraving, using plates manufactured by Jacob Perkins as early as 1821), who married Selina Price (1780?-1853) in 1821. Following his death in 1831, Selina continued the business of map engraving, signing her engravings simply as “S. Hall” which has caused confusion in cartographic bibliographies. She is recorded as an engraver on the 1842 Census, living in Bury Street with a servant. She was buried 23 Nov. 1853 at St. George Bloomsbury. In her will, she left her books, maps etc., to her nephew Edward Weller who continued the business.

Good example in original wash hand colour.