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Columbus First Sighting of the New World
Fine image of Christopher Columbus on a boat, holding a manuscript Portolan Sea chart and looking to the horizon, following the first sighting of land in the New World.
In Columbus's left hand, he holds a finely executed Portolan Sea Chart, opened to show the Iberian Peninsula and a large compass rose, but suggestive of an expanse well into the Atlantic Ocean.
The engraving is by Franz Seraph Hanfstaengl, based upon a painting by the German artist Christian Ruben (1805-1875), painted circa 1840. The engraving was given as a keepsake by the Munich Association of Artists to it's members in year 1850. Ruben's painting currently hangs in the National Gallery in Prague.
It is likely that this engraving was the inspiration for a number of similar prints and paintings which were completed in Germany and Philadelphia shortly after 1850, all based upon Ruben's Painting.
The view is quite rare. We locate only the example referenced in The Hampton L. Carson collection of engraved portraits of American naval commanders and early American explorers and navigators, also American sea and land battles, sold at auction in 1905 by Davis & Harvey, Philadelphia.
![[Pictish Man Holding Sword and Pike] Alterius viri Pictis vicini icon IIII](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/99890.jpg)
![[ Compass Rose ]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/85884.jpg)
