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1851 John Tallis
$225.00
Description

Striking full color example of John Tallis's decorative map of Switzerland. The map is artfully engraved, and typical of Tallis it includes a number of vignettes.

The images on the map tell about the folk hero William Tell (mythical founder of the Swiss Confederacy), depictions of indigenous Tyrolese, chamois hunters. Also shown are images of Bern and the Castle at Chillon.

The map is colored by canton, with a great many cities and other geographical features shown. The map was engraved for R. Montgomery Martin's Illustrated Atlas. Tallis was one of the last great decorative map makers and his maps are prized for the wonderful vignettes of indigenous scenes, people, and artifacts that they show.

John Tallis Biography

John Tallis (1817-1876) was a British map publisher. Born in the Midlands, Tallis came to London in the 1840s. Tallis began his London career with a series of remarkable London street views. He began a partnership with a Frederick Tallis, possibly his brother, but their collaboration ended in 1849. For the Great Exhibition of 1851, Tallis published the Illustrated World Atlas, one of the last series of decorative world maps ever produced. The maps were engraved by John Rapkin, a skilled artisan. The maps were later reissued by the London Printing & Publishing Company, who left the Tallis imprint intact, thus ensuring his enduring fame. In 1858, he began publication of the popular Illustrated News of the World and National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages, selling it in 1861 (it ceased publication in 1863).