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Description : |
This large beautifully
hand coloured original antique map of Great Britain & Ireland was
published by J.B. Nolin in 1707 after the great Italian
cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli.
English Cartography:
When considering the work of English map makers we tend,
perhaps, to think too much in terms of county maps,
dominated by the names of Saxton and Speed, but we
should not underrate the contribution to the sum of
geographical knowledge made in other spheres, such as
the sea charts of Edward Wright, Robert Dudley and
Greenvile Collins, the discoveries of James Cook, the
road maps of Ogilby and Cary, the meteorological and
magnetic charts compiled by Edmund Halley, to mention
only a few.
In 1558 Queen Elizabeth
came to the throne in the midst of a fast changing
world. In 1563 a nineteen sheet map, copies of which
survive only in manuscript form, was completed by
Laurence Nowell, and no doubt, the issue of Mercator's
large-scale map of the British Isles in 1564 had an
important influence on the thought of the period. A few
years later a national survey was commissioned
privately, although probably at the instigation of Lord
Burghley, the Lord Treasurer, but subsequently was
completed with royal encouragement. The outcome was
Christopher Saxton's Atlas of EngIand and Wales,
started about 1570 and published in 1579 - the first
printed set of county maps and the first countrywide
atlas on such a splendid scale produced anywhere. A
Welsh antiquarian, Humphrey Lhuyd completed a set of
surveys that were even more successful than Saxton in
which he had produced fine manuscript maps of England
and Wales which were used by Ortelius in editions of his
Atlas from 1573 onwards.
The earliest maps of
the 17th century, attributed to William Smith of the
College of Heralds, covered only twelve counties based
on Saxton/Norden and were presumably intended to be part
of a complete new atlas. They were printed in the Low
Countries in 1602-3 and were soon followed by maps for
the Latin edition of Camden's Britannia dated
1607. In 1610-11 the first edition of John Speed's
famous county Atlas The Theatre of the Empire of
Great Britaine was published and immediately
replaced Saxton's in popular appeal. Although Speed
assembled much of his material from the earlier works of
Saxton, Norden and others, a considerable part of the
up-to-date information, especially relating to the inset
town plans depicted on his maps, was obtained first
hand. The maps undoubtedly owed much of their popularity
to the splendid engravings of high quality made in the
workshops in Amsterdam of Jodocus Hondius to whom Speed
sent his manuscripts, the plates subsequently being
returned to London for printing.
In 1645, Volume IV of the famous Blaeu World Atlas
covering the counties of England and Wales was published
in Amsterdam. These maps have always been esteemed as
superb examples of engraving and design, the calligraphy
being particularly splendid, but nevertheless they were
nearly all based on Saxton and Speed and added little to
geographical knowledge.
Not until the latter part of the century do we find an
English map maker of originality with the capacity to
put new ideas into practice. John Ogilby, one of the
more colourful figures associated with cartography,
started life as a dancing master and finished as King's
Cosmographer and Geographic Printer. After publishing a
small number of county maps, somewhat on the lines of
John Norden he issued in 1675 the Britannia, the
first practical series of detailed maps of the post
roads of England and Wales on a standard scale of 1,760
yards to the mile. Up to the end of the century and
beyond, reprints and revisions of Saxton's and Speed's
atlases continued to appear and the only other
noteworthy county maps were Richard Blome's Britannia
(1673), John Overton's Atlas (c. 1670) and
Robert Morden's maps for an English translation of
Camden's Britannia published in 1695.
Another noted cartographer of the day was Captain
Greenvile Collins, and of his work in surveying the
coasts of Great Britain culminating in the issue in 1693
of the Great Britain's Coasting Pilot. Apart from
these charts, English cartographers published during the
century a number of world atlases. Speed was the first
Englishman to produce a world atlas with the issue in
1627 of his A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of
the World. Other atlases appeared later in the
century by Peter Heylin, John Seller, William Berry,
Moses Pitt and Richard Blome, whilst Ogilby found time
to issue maps of Africa, America and Asia. Far more
important, from the purely scientific point of view, was
the work of Edmund Halley, Astronomer Royal, who
compiled and issued meteorological and magnetic charts
in 1688 and 1701 respectively.
At the beginning of the
eighteenth century the Dutch map trade was finally in
decline, the French in the ascendant and the English to
a great extent still dominated by Saxton and Speed
except, as we have shown, in the spheres of sea charts
and road maps. There were atlases by John Senex, the
Bowles family, Emanuel and Thomas Bowen, Thomas
Badeslade and the unique bird's-eye perspective views of
the counties, The British Monarchy by George
Bickham. In 1750-60 Bowen and Kitchin's The Large
English Atlas containing maps on a rather larger
scale than hitherto was published.
In 1759 the Society for the encouragement of Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce offered an award of £100 for
the best original surveys on this scale and by the end
of the century about thirty counties had been
re-surveyed. These maps, many of which formed, in later
years, the basis for the first issues of county maps by
the Ordnance Survey Office were not only decorative but
a tremendous improvement geographically on earlier local
maps. As a consequence, the skills and expertise of the
new-style cartographers soon enabled them to cover the
world as well as the domestic market. Thomas Jefferys
was such a man; he was responsible for a number of the
new 1 in. to 1 mile county surveys and he issued an
edition of Saxton's much battered 200-year-old plates of
the county maps, but he is better known for many fine
maps of North America and the West Indies. His work was
continued on the same lines by William Faden, trading as
Faden and Jefferys. Other publishers such as Sayer and
Bennett and their successors Laurie and Whittle
published a prodigious range of maps, charts and atlases
in the second half of the century. A major influence at
this time was John Cary who, apart from organizing the
first re-survey of post roads since Ogilby and
subsequently printing the noted Travellers'
Companion, was a prolific publisher of atlases and
maps of every kind of all parts of the world. After
starting work with Cary, and taking part in the new road
survey, Aaron Arrowsmith set up in his own business and
went on to issue splendid large-scale maps of many parts
of the world. Both Cary's and Arrowsmith's plates were
used by other publishers until far into the next century
and, in turn, their work was taken up and developed by
James Wyld (Elder and Younger) and Tallis and Co.
Later into the 19th century some of the better known
cartographers and publishers were by Henry Teesdale
(1829-30), Christopher and John Greenwood, surveyors,
Thomas Moule, a writer on heraldry and antiques
(1830-36) and John Walker (1837) but by about the middle
of the century few small-scale publishers survived and
their business passed into the hands of large commercial
concerns such as Bartholomews of Edinburgh and Philips
of London who continue to this day. (Ref: Shirley; Tooley;
M&B)
General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color: - off white
Age of map color: - Original & later
Colors used: - Yellow, green, red, brown.
General color appearance: - Authentic and fresh
Paper size: - 26in x 19 1/2in (660mm x 495mm)
Plate size: - 24in x 18 1/2in (610mm x 470mm)
Margins: - Min 1/16in (2mm)
Imperfections:
Margins: - Top left & bottom right margins cropped to
plate-mark
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None
If you wish to discuss this or any other item
please email or call...Simon
61 (0) 409 551910 Tel
simon@classicalimages.com
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