Watch List notes:

BRITISH. Framed map from a printed work by Sir Walter Raleigh. Circa 1648. The map depicts the "Forty Years Travels of the Children of Israel Out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and the Wilderness into Canaan or the Land of Promise," removed from a 1648 print of Sir Walter Raleigh's Historie of the World in Five Bookes. Professionally matted with a reinforced centerfold, the map is printed on heavy paper with black ink and original doubled borders in red. Map measures 18.5" X 12"; outer frame measures 26.5" X 20", with brass plaque engraved "Sir Walter Raleigh / 1648". The paper somewhat creased and lightly yellowed, with a few light age spots, otherwise in excellent condition.

From the Collection of a Connoisseur.

The Historie was written by Raleigh during his imprisonment in the Tower of London as a tutorial for Henry, Prince of Wales. Henry was heir apparent to the English throne, but predeceased his father James I, dying of typhoid in 1612. Raleigh's volume dealt mainly with the ancient world but drew parallels to contemporary events, with the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness seen as akin to the listlessness of England following the death of his patroness Elizabeth I. James I criticized it as "too sawcie in censuring princes" and delayed its publication, but the Historie was an immediate success when first published in 1634, 16 years after Raleigh's execution.