The Wonder Map of Melbourne
Melbourne, Wonder Maps of Australia Co. (Printed by Troedel & Cooper Pty. Ltd.), 1934.
A colour lithographed map (sheet size 755 × 1005 mm; printed surface 713 × 955 mm), folding down into the original colour-pictorial wrappers (141 × 265 mm when closed).
Small split at the intersection of two folds, and a short tear to one edge expertly sealed; a couple of trifling spots of foxing; an excellent copy in the very good wrappers (slightly torn, with a patch of surface loss from an old label on the front cover, and with an old ink annotation on the rear panel).
A very colourful oblique view of Melbourne in the style of MacDonald Gill, showing the city from a point above Port Phillip Bay. A large cartouche near the bottom left contains the text: 'We show you Melbourne City, | but from a dizzy height. | Come see it as we know it, | you'll vote it very bright'. The map was published to commemorate the centenary of the foundation of the city. The eight vignettes around the border include six scenes featuring Indigenous Australians, based loosely on designs from John Heaviside Clark's 'Foreign Field Sports' (1814).
Item #143714
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