Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Restoring a Map of New York

The Times has a nice article on a 1770 map of New York by British Lieutenant Bernard Ratzer, which the Brooklyn Museum discovered in its collection. It had lain unexamined for so long that they have no idea how they got it. The map was in terrible shape and had to be cut into strips before it could be unrolled, then extensively treated to remove a dark coat of varnish and other ills. But now, as you can see in this feature, it is revealed as an extraordinary work of eighteenth-century cartography.

No comments: