Spain & Portugal Map 1831 American Atlas Print - Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Seville, Cádiz

Anthony Finley of Philadelphia published this Spain & Portugal in 1831 in A New General Atlas Comprising a Complete Set of Maps, representing the Grand Divisions of the Globe, an atlas first issued in 1824 and brought out each year until 1834. The map was engraved by Young & Delleker, is in full color, and measures 29 by 22 centimeters at a scale of 1:4,500,000, bordered by markers of longitude and latitude. The catalog description names Madrid, Lisbon and Barcelona, the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean coast among its features. The 1831 copy has the Atlas Classica, a set of ancient maps, bound at the back, a common feature of the later editions, so that one volume served for both modern and classical geography.

The catalog places the map in the years after the Napoleonic Wars and before the Carlist Wars, when the political divisions it shows were vital for trade, travel and governance. Ferdinand VII reigned in Madrid, and in Lisbon the Portuguese court had returned from Brazil in 1821 after more than a decade in Rio de Janeiro. Barcelona was the Mediterranean port of Catalonia, while Seville and Cádiz in the south were the old gateways of the Spanish trade with the Americas, a link that mattered to American readers. The Pyrenees formed the barrier between the peninsula and France.

A collector of early American atlases, a family with roots in Andalusia or Catalonia, or a student of Atlantic trade will find an interesting gift here. TheMapVault's Dower and Teesdale sheet of 1831 shows the peninsula in the same year at a larger scale of 1:3,700,000, whereas this Finley sheet is the smaller American version at 1:4,500,000, drawn for an atlas with ancient maps bound behind it. 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.