Mr Alfred Sifton

The Map House is London’s oldest specialist antiquarian map seller. Founded as Map and Booksellers by  Alfred Sifton and Francis Praed in 1907, we have been selling maps to collectors, motorists, aviators, explorers, Prime Ministers and the Royal Family for over a century. We have supplied maps of Antarctica to Ernest Shackleton, the Far East to Winston Churchill, and the Western Front to Edward VIII, as well as important pieces to the British Library and the Library of Congress amongst many other prominent institutions and collections.

We received our Royal Warrant as Suppliers of Maps to the Prince of Wales in 1920. Indeed, so fascinated was Edward that he used to slip out of St James’s Palace and work, unpaid, in the basement of the Map House. It was evidently on one of these forays that he acquired the boxed set of maps of the Western Front as he has both signed it and written out the title himself on the label, a job usually done by the map-seller before sale.

After nearly seventy years in St James’s we moved to our present position in Knightsbridge in 1973. Our six galleries contain the finest and most comprehensive selection of original antique maps offered for sale anywhere in the world.

The Print Gallery is one of our hidden gems and a must-see for your visit to The Map House. Situated on the first-floor of 54 Beauchamp Place – with nearly 10,000 items in our collection – The Print Gallery is teeming with rare and beautiful original antique prints from spectacular 17th century panoramas of London to fine engravings of Natural History, Science, Military and Naval to vintage advertisements and posters.

We are delighted to supply current stock lists of maps or prints and are able to supply detailed Condition Reports and scanned images upon request. We are always pleased to advise on the buying or selling of antique cartographic material, and we also offer both a formal and an informal valuation service. For all items purchased, we supply descriptions and Certificates of Authenticity.

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