Christie's Mopelia Collection

As a member of the New York Map Society, I was invited to a reception for a display at Christie's Gallery at Rockefeller Center called "Beyond the Horizon: The Mopelia Collection of Fine Atlases and Travel Books." The brochure cover is shown and much of the display was devoted to the art illustrating the books. Someone spent a fortune collecting atlases, mostly Dutch, from the 16th and 17th Centuries

A small portion the collection was on display here, before moving to Paris before the Auction in Paris on June 5. These are objects of art that I never hope to own. I have a genetic condition: I was born without the acquisitive gene. I'm just as happy, more happy really, viewing such treasures in museums, galleries and libraries as compared to keeping them in my home and insuring them, worrying about them and taking some sort of guilty pleasure in excluding others from seeing them. And this is beside the fact that there is no way I could afford to bid on these masterpieces.
But somehow I knew to wear a suit and tie and my name was on the list with the other 50 or 60 well dressed folks.
The exhibition was co-sponsored by another company that Christie's parent company owns: Ponant. I had never heard of Ponant. It calls itself "The World Leader of Luxury Expeditions" and the brochure describes extremely elegant small cruise ships. The  company representative tied the cruises of discovery of Ponant with the charts of the discoverers. He extolled the excellence of the French cuisine and the luxury of small boat voyaging-- less than 200 passengers on a boat. I later gave him my card and told him that my way of cruising was thus even more luxurious with a maximum of only four passengers aboard ILENE and the further luxury of staying in an interesting port for as long as it retained interest as compared to the schedule of a commercial cruise line.
The liveried staff wined me and passed the most beautiful and tasty hors d'oeuvres.
But the highlight of the evening was the display of books of charts, especially of western Atlantic waters, such as the two below.
First is a Dutch view of "Nieu Nederlandt", more specifically the coast from Norfolk through Cape Cod. Interesting to zoom in, which the eye can do more easily than the camera, to find place names that I am familiar with and those whose names have changed.  Also interesting to note the gross discrepancies compared to modern charts such as the size of Long Island as compared to Nantucket and Martha Vineyard.

 The second one I photographed has a smaller portion of the world, showing a bit more of the Virginia coast heading down toward Hatteras but going only as far north as Staten Island. Interestingly, north is to the right instead of the top so that the two huge pages (you can see the grey crease in the middle) could show a greater expanse.

 All of the charts were beautiful. mostly hand colored. They were made for wealthy merchants to impress their friends with, not to be subjected to the hazards of the sea. A very pleasant experience.

P.S.:  Newyorkmapsociety.org is a 501(c)(3) organization that is open to anyone with an interest in maps or charts. Some of our members are experts, others collectors (which can be a rather pricey addiction) but others, like me, are mere users and lovers of maps and charts. We are not at all exclusive and annual dues are only $30. We hold about ten meetings a year at which aspects of maps and charts are discussed. If you are in the NYC area, you might want to look up a meeting and give it a try.