Sunderland Collection Rare Cartographical Loan on Display

For the first time in its 40 year history, The Sunderland Collection, a private collection of rare antique cartography, is loaning items to a public institution. The collection is lending eight atlases and maps to the Sainsbury Centre, a public art museum in Norwich, UK which is affiliated with the University of East Anglia.

A World of Water, running March 15 through August 3, is part of Can the Seas Survive Us?, a series of Sainsbury Centre exhibitions bringing together works by British and international artists from the last 250 years who have offered their perspective on marine ecosystems and oceanic habitats. A World of Water focuses on humanity’s profound connection with the sea, raising questions about the global response to climate change, coastal erosion and environmental degradation.

The Sunderland Collection’s rare version of the Geographia (Sebastian Münster, 1540) in original colour will be the oldest work to be included in the exhibition, while the version of Del’ Arcano del Mare (Robert Dudley, 1646-47) is the first edition to have been owned by the Medici cardinal who sponsored its maker. Speculum Nauticum (Lucas Janszoom Waghenaer, 1586), with its coastal charts illustrated with fantastical sea monsters, was a best-seller for nautical navigators of its time. 

“Access is at the heart of everything we do, so we are incredibly proud and excited to be making our first loan to a public institution," said 
Helen Sunderland-Cohen, manager of The Sunderland Collection. "Our hope is to share the objects in The Sunderland Collection with as many people as possible. We look forward to future collaborations with institutions all over the world."
 
Other items going on display include:

• The Drake Map, Jodocus Hondius, 1589

• 
Harmonia Macrocosmica, Andreas Cellarius , 1660
• 
Mundus Subterraneous, Athanasius Kircher, 1664-65

• Theatre of the Great Empire of Britaine, John Speed, 1667

• Zee Atlas, Peter Goos, 1675

The Sunderland Collection comprises cartographic objects from the 13th to the early 19th centuries, featuring world and celestial maps, atlases, books of knowledge and globes.