Australia Map 1929 Pictorial Print - Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane

Margaret Whiting Spilhaus created this large pictorial wall map of Australia in London around 1929, a resplendent depiction of the continent's landscape and history. Spilhaus was a South African author and illustrator who began with children's books such as South African Nursery Rhymes and The Limber Elf, then turned to historical works including The Background of Geography and South Africa in the Making, and this map is one of a series of pictorial maps she produced. The design weaves together the continent's natural and colonial narratives with kangaroos and other wildlife, trains, explorers and ships. It is a pictorial regional map made in 1929, when Australia had been a Commonwealth for twenty-eight years and its Parliament had only just moved to the new capital at Canberra.

The map's central cartouche shows Captain James Cook's arrival and his claim of the east coast for Great Britain in August 1770, a pivotal moment in the colonial story. It is flanked by a border of square-rigged ships, with an inner border of intertwined fishes that reinforces the maritime theme. In the lower right a second cartouche holds the seal of Australia, above a building marked Canberra, May 1927, which probably signifies the opening of the Provisional Parliament House. Beyond the cartouches, the map marks the provinces and fills them with illustrations of the continent's native animals and its history of exploration and settlement. Together the images make a map that reads like a story.

A Canberra public servant, a Sydney or Melbourne family, or a collector of pictorial maps will find a lasting gift here, perhaps for a retirement or a wedding. TheMapVault's Gill pictorial map of 1928, drawn for the Empire Marketing Board, sells the country's produce with a salesman's flair, while Spilhaus's sheet is a historical pageant of Cook, explorers and ships. Stanford's 1926 sheet and the Air Ministry's air-routes map are sober reference works by comparison. 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.