Holland & Belgium Map 1860 Colton Atlas Print with City Insets - Amsterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam

This interesting detailed map of Holland and Belgium was published in New York in 1860 by Joseph Hutchins Colton, one of the most prolific American publishers of the nineteenth century. Large insets give closer views of Amsterdam and Brussels, the two capitals, and the sheet carries the usual Colton care in its lettering and borders. The firm of J. H. Colton was one of the pre-eminent American map publishing houses of the mid-nineteenth century. The sheet gathers the two lowland countries on one page, which suits a reader who wants to follow the neighbors together, and the insets make the sheet useful for an American traveler. It also shows the tidy, orderly style of mid-century American commercial mapmaking, where bold coloring and clean lettering made a sheet legible to the casual reader.

Colton was born in 1800 in Massachusetts and did not begin in the map trade. He worked in a general store from 1816 to 1829 and then as a night clerk at the United States Post Office in Hartford, Connecticut, before reaching New York City by 1830 and setting up his publishing business a year later. His first imprint is dated 1833, a reprint of David Burr's map of the state of New York. By 1850 the firm was a primary publisher of guidebooks, immigrant and railroad maps, known for high-quality steel engravings with decorative borders and hand watercolors, and this map shows that house style.

A collector of American atlas maps, a family with roots in Holland or Belgium, or a lover of city insets will find a useful gift here. TheMapVault's Greenleaf map of 1840 shows the same pair of countries from a New England press, whereas this Colton sheet adds the large inset views of Amsterdam and Brussels. 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.