This is one of the earliest detailed maps of Alaska. It focuses on the southern peninsula centred on Sitka. The region is named New Norfolk. From Vander Maelen’s ‘Atlas Universel de Geographie Physique, Statistique et Mineralogique’. The atlas was the first published in lithograph and formed a Sanson-Flamsteed projected globe of 7.75 metres in diameter. This was constructed in the ‘Etablissement Geographique’ in Brussels. A total of 400 maps were produced covering the world on the same scale throughout. Koeman (1967-70) III Vdm 1.

”Philippe Vandermaelen was born in Brussels in 1795, the son of a rich soap manufacturer. After his father’s death in 1816, he devoted himself to maps and eleven years later produced this quite remarkable atlas. It was totally at his own expense, and like so many innovations in the past it came about through the single-minded efforts of a man who could afford failure … It offered the largest picture of the earth’s surface available in the nineteenth century, thereby giving the lesser known areas such as Australia, South Africa and the West coast of America, all developing countries, a much greater coverage than before. And, perhaps most importantly of all, it was the first atlas to be produced by lithography” (Wardington Catalogue).