A Map of Oxfordshire by John Owen / Emanuel Bowen

Code: 50422

Author: Owen, John & Bowen, Emanuel

Publisher: Britannia Depicta

Date published: 1720circa

County Map. Copper engraving with later hand colouring. Overall size in hinged off white fully conservation mount and back (so floating freely apart from two pieces of archival tape) : 26.8cms x 34.3cms. Engraved size : 113mm x 183mm. Description of county below map..about 44686 Houses and : The Air is so sweet, pleasant and mild that it invites hither many of our Gentry who have here their habitations. the Soil though Various is very fruitfull of Corn and Grass for the use of Man & Beast and the Hills are shaded with Woods which affords Abundance of Game both for Hawk and Hound.... The verso (uncoloured) has the road from Saxmundham to Yarmouth (no 139). Very good condition apart from faint show through from verso in blank areas. Emanuel Bowen, in collaboration with John Owen, engraved the maps for the half-scale reduction of Ogilby's road maps of 1675. The need for a smaller version to take on coach travel was supplied by their Britannia Depicta and was first published in 1720 : The Whole for its Compendious Variety & Exactness, preferable to all other Books of Roads hitherto Published or Proposed ; And calculated not only for the direction of the Traveller (as they are) but the general use of the Gentleman and Tradesman. This set of maps was very popular and had many re-issues and was probably the most successful of the pocket road maps combining as it did individual county maps followed by a set of strip road maps.