LONDON.- Sotheby’s London Sale of Old Master, Modern & Contemporary Prints, on Wednesday, 30 March, 2011, will present for sale the earliest printed star charts, in the form of a pair of extremely rare woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer depicting A Map of the Northern Sky and A Map of the Southern Sky. These two celestial maps are the oldest printed star charts published in Europe. Dated circa 1515, they were produced in Nuremberg under the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, and were the product of an innovative collaboration between Dürer, the eminent Viennese mathematician, cartographer and astronomer Johannes Stabius and German astronomer Conrad Heinfogel. The woodcuts depict the northern and southern skies known to European astronomers at the time, and combine with great skill the accuracy of the stars with constellation figures as visualised by the Greeks and Romans. There are only ten other examples of the