As many as 100 greatest maps of the world, including a hand drawn copy of the first modern world map made for the East India Company, will be put on display at a major summer exhibition at the British Library here.
Titled ‘Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art,’ over three-quarters of the rare maps will be exhibited for the first time, and include cartographic masterpieces on paper, wood, vellum, silver, silk and marble including atlases, maps, globes and tapestries.
Drawn from the 4.5 million items held in the British Library’s cartographic collections - the greatest map collection in the world - the exhibition will showcase over 80 of the most impressive wall-maps ever created, dating from 200 AD to the present day, most of which have never been seen before.
Recreating the settings in which they would have originally been seen — from the palace to the schoolroom, the exhibition reveals how maps express an enormous variety of differing world views, using size and beauty to convey messages of status and power.
Besides the map for the East India Company, other highlights include Confiance - ses Amputations se Poursuivent, 1944 - a German propaganda poster portraying Churchill as an octopus, drawing on earlier comic maps.
