Beschreibung:

[Arabian Peninsula]. 'Carte de la mer Rouge, relevée sur celle de James Bruce', 1827, watercolour with pen and ink on laid paper (the paper probably Middle Eastern), captions and lines of latitude and longitude, title within cartouche lower left, spotting and staining, extensive loss to left side affecting frame and cartouche, 2 extensive closed tears extending into image from bottom and right edges, other chips and tears to corners edges, verso with old adhesive residue and numerous inked inscriptions in Arabic (see note), 45.8 x 31.8 cm (Qty: 1) Near-contemporary manuscript copy of James Bruce's 'Chart of the Arabian Gulf with its Egyptian, Ethiopian and Arabian Coasts', with compelling provenance to early-19th-century Egypt: the Arabic inscriptions verso include 'Ibrahim Khwajah al-Sarraf' (i.e. 'Ibrahim Khwajah the Moneychanger'), 'Misr 1223' (Cairo/ Egypt, 1808/9 AD [sic]), 'Sikandariyah 1244' (Alexandria 1828/9 AD), and a religious invocation apparently including part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the Gospel of Matthew, with orthographical inconsistencies suggesting a non-native author. The map was first published in Bruce's Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790). It focuses on the coast of modern Saudi Arabia down to Mocha in Yemen, and includes the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. A French translation of Bruce's work appeared in 1790-2; no edition appears to have been published in 1827, the date in the cartouche, which is consequently presumed to be the date of execution.