George Bellas Greenough
Unknown
Estimate: 3.000 - 5.000 GBP
Price realised: 4.375 GBP
Price realised: 4.375 GBP
Description
GEORGE BELLAS GREENOUGH (1778-1855)
A Geological Map of England and Wales. London: Geological Society, 1839 [but 1840]. Fine hand-coloured folding engraved map (engraved image 1882 x 1582mm), to the scale of 5 nautical miles to one inch, numbered 25 in ink manuscript under title imprint, dissected and laid down on linen into three sections, with separate engraved and hand-coloured index leaf, contained in a contemporary marbled paper portfolio, inside a modern paper portfolio. Provenance: Simon Schropp of Berlin (19th-century engraved mapseller's label on verso of northern section) -- John C. Thackray.
A FINE, CLEAN COPY OF THE RARE SECOND EDITION. The map was sold to Fellows for £4 and to the public for £5. Greenough gave the copperplates to the Society on condition that once the Geological Society had recovered its expenses, any surplus from sales was to go to him, up to a total of £718 2s 5d which was the amount he had paid for drawing and engraving. After that, the plates were to be the property of the Society. It is now acknowledged that Greenough plagiarised William Smith's great map of 1815, but by the time the present work was published, Smith's work had been, to a large extent, recognised by the Geological Society. However, despite the Society's award of the Wollaston Medal in 1831, the government's honorific pension of £100 per annum, and the conferment of an honorary LL.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, on Smith, Greenough still refused to acknowledge his debt to Smith on the map itself; this only appeared on the third edition in 1869, long after Greenough's death. We w
A Geological Map of England and Wales. London: Geological Society, 1839 [but 1840]. Fine hand-coloured folding engraved map (engraved image 1882 x 1582mm), to the scale of 5 nautical miles to one inch, numbered 25 in ink manuscript under title imprint, dissected and laid down on linen into three sections, with separate engraved and hand-coloured index leaf, contained in a contemporary marbled paper portfolio, inside a modern paper portfolio. Provenance: Simon Schropp of Berlin (19th-century engraved mapseller's label on verso of northern section) -- John C. Thackray.
A FINE, CLEAN COPY OF THE RARE SECOND EDITION. The map was sold to Fellows for £4 and to the public for £5. Greenough gave the copperplates to the Society on condition that once the Geological Society had recovered its expenses, any surplus from sales was to go to him, up to a total of £718 2s 5d which was the amount he had paid for drawing and engraving. After that, the plates were to be the property of the Society. It is now acknowledged that Greenough plagiarised William Smith's great map of 1815, but by the time the present work was published, Smith's work had been, to a large extent, recognised by the Geological Society. However, despite the Society's award of the Wollaston Medal in 1831, the government's honorific pension of £100 per annum, and the conferment of an honorary LL.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, on Smith, Greenough still refused to acknowledge his debt to Smith on the map itself; this only appeared on the third edition in 1869, long after Greenough's death. We w
Auction result well in line with expectations
The work Unknown by George Bellas Greenough was sold in the Travel, Science & Natural History auction at Christies in London in April 2014. The price achieved of GBP 4,375.00 (€ 5,325.39) was within expectations - the estimate range had previously been set by the auction house as GBP 3,000.00 – 5,000.00. However, buyers have had to dig much deeper into their pockets for other works by George Bellas Greenough - we have observed the highest auction result to date for the work Unknown, which sold at auction in April 2014 for GBP 10,000.00 (€ 12,172.31).
Auktionsergebnis im Rahmen der Erwartungen
Die Arbeit Unknown von George Bellas Greenough wurde im April 2014 in der Auktion Travel, Science & Natural History bei Christies in London versteigert. Der dabei erzielte Preis von GBP 4.375,00 (€ 5.325,39) lag im Rahmen der Erwartungen – die Schätzpreisspanne war von dem Auktionshaus zuvor mit GBP 3.000,00 – 5.000,00 angegeben worden. Für andere Arbeiten von George Bellas Greenough mussten die Käufer allerdings auch schon deutlich tiefer in die Tasche greifen – das bisher höchste Auktionsergebnis haben wir für die Arbeit Unknown beobachtet, die im April 2014 für GBP 10.000,00 (€ 12.172,31) versteigert wurde.
George Bellas Greenough - Auction history
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