Sweden & Norway Map 1855 Tallis Atlas Print with Peasants & Laplanders Vignettes - Stockholm, Dannemora, Uppsala, Skate Runners

This gorgeous full-color map of Sweden and Norway was published in London by John Tallis in 1855 and engraved for R. Montgomery Martin's Illustrated Atlas. The sheet carries decorative vignettes of Stockholm, Norwegian Laplanders, the iron mines at Dannemora near Uppsala, Norwegian peasantry, Norwegian skielobere or skate runners, and the peasants of Sweden. The catalog notes that the vignette showing skiing is of particular significance, because it is an early printed view of the sport. The vignettes sit around the map like a small gallery of northern life, and they give it a cheerful character that plain atlas sheets lack. The sheet is a pleasing record of daily life in the north in the middle of the nineteenth century, and its colors remain bright and cheerful.

Tallis was one of the last great decorative map makers, and his maps are prized for the wonderful vignettes of indigenous scenes, people and customs. John Tallis lived from 1817 to 1876 and was born in the Midlands. He came to London in the 1840s, began with a series of London street views, and published the Illustrated World Atlas for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The maps were engraved by John Rapkin and later reissued by the London Printing and Publishing Company, which left the Tallis imprint intact, so that his name endured on the finest sheets of the mid-Victorian atlas.

Anyone who enjoys decorative maps, a skier or family with roots in Sweden or Norway, or a collector of Victorian atlases will find a lively gift here. Another copy of this same 1855 sheet is also in the collection, so you can choose the example whose crops you prefer. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print. It would suit a study, a hall or a library.