As this work was intended largely as an administrative tool, only fifty copies of this atlas were ever printed. A copy was presented to Selim III; several copies were also presented to the high-ranking officials of the Empire, some were reserved for the library of Muhendishane (the military engineering school of the time), and the remaining were reserved for sale. However, during the ‘Alemdar Vakası’, an uprising of the Janissaries in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) during 15–18 November 1808, a fire at the warehouse of the press destroyed an unknown (unaccounted) number of the copies reserved for sale. Based on several estimates and accounting for the single maps (torn out from bound volumes of the atlas) sold or being sold worldwide, it is believed that a maximum of twenty complete examples could be present in libraries or in private collections whereas some sources suggest that there exist only ten complete and intact copies in the world. As such, it is one of the rarest printed atlases of historical value.

’ includes a monochrome celestial chart and twenty-four hand-colored copper engraved maps of various parts of the world. The world map on a Mercator projection is centred on the Australian continent. As commonly depicted at the time, the mainland of Australia and Tasmania are shown as one landmass. All the continents are outlined in colour, with Asia and Australia a wash with yellow and the Americas with green. All map text such as the title, place names, and annotations are in Ottoman Turkish. The map also shows navigational routes explored by James Cook from 1768 to 1780.

The Sunderland Collection

Mahmud Raif Effendi's ‘Cedid Atlas’ (‘New Atlas’) was the first folio atlas printed in the Ottoman Empire. Only fifty examples were ever published of which only ten complete examples and seven partial examples are known to have survived.

Efendi served as Secretary to the first permanent Ottoman Embassy in London where he made diplomatic ties and was exposed to European cartographic knowledge. After befriending William Faden, George III's Royal Cartographer, Efendi copied many of the maps in Faden’s ‘General Atlas’ (except for the celestial chart) to create his ‘Cedid Atlas’. Faden’s maps were extremely accurate and contained the best contemporary knowledge available to the British government, and Efendi’s translation proved to be highly influential in the Ottoman Empire.

The Nazam-i Cedid (‘New Order’) instituted by Sultan Selim III (ruled 1789-1807) included a series of reforms intended to modernise the Ottoman army and the administrative structure of the Empire. These reforms required foremost new standards in geography and cartography and necessitated the need for a ‘Cedid’ or new atlas. To create this, Efendi translated and copied the maps, except for the celestial chart, from his friend William Faden's ‘General Atlas’, a copy of which he had purchased during his time in London.

The Ottoman Embassy in London, established in 1793, was the first permanent embassy by the Ottoman Empire to any European country. The goals of the embassy were to strengthen diplomatic ties, collect European knowledge, and educate a small coterie of young Turkish noblemen in the ways of European courts. The move to establish permanent embassies was part of Sultan Selim III's ‘New Order’.

This exceedingly rare world map from Mahmoud Raif Effendi's ‘Cedid Atlas’ ('New Atlas') the first folio atlas printed in the Ottoman Empire. Only fifty examples of the ‘Cedid Atlas’ were ever printed, of which only ten complete examples, and seven partial examples, are known to have survived in institutional collections.

The World Map from the first Islamic Atlas of the World