![[MAP-WORLD] [CRANE, WALTER]. Imperial Federation, Map of the World Showing the Extent of the British Empire in 1886.](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/340/1591340.jpg?itok=XJy3abBw)
Lot Details
Lot 58
[MAP-WORLD] [CRANE, WALTER]. Imperial Federation, Map of the World Showing the Extent of the British Empire in 1886.
London: Maclure and Co., 1886. Published as a supplement to "The Graphic," July 24th, 1886. Color lithographed map. 22 1/4 x 30 1/4 (56.5 x 76.75 cm) to the neatline. Old folds, heavy offsetting on verso of map from non-archival tape, the offsetting is faintly visible on the recto of the map and is more pronounced in the margins, lightly sunned, the map would benefit from being matted and framed, covering the offsetting in the margins.
Walter Crane's subversive map of the world, with the British Empire's holdings shown highlighted in red, was published to coincide with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. At first glance, the map appears to be a quintessential piece of imperialist propaganda. It combines the realities of Britain's global infrastructure, emphasized by statistical tables and trade routes, with the imperialist fantasy of richness and exoticism, denoted by the allegorical figures, flora and fauna that represent the Empire's peoples, places and products. Walter Crane, both a leader of the Arts and Crafts movement and an ardent socialist, undercuts this rosy picture of imperialism by including Phyrigian caps, symbols of the Roman slave rebellion and the French Revolution, on the allegorical figures of liberty, fraternity and federation, and a sash reading "human labour" around the chest of Atlas, who holds the world on which Britannia sits. P.J. Mode Collection, 1095.01.
C
Additional Notes & Condition Report
No condition report? Click here to request one.