Thomas Bowen Map of Europe — Bankes's New System of Geography, c.1788
$ 129.36
Description
Thomas Bowen Map of Europe — Bankes's New System of Geography, c.1788. Engraved c.1788–1790, during Bowen's last working years before his death in the Clerkenwell workhouse. Bowen lineage: Thomas Bowen was the son of Emanuel Bowen, Royal Mapmaker to both George II and Louis XV simultaneously. A copperplate-engraved map of Europe by Thomas Bowen (c.1733–1790), pulled from Rev. Thomas Bankes's New System of Universal Geography — the massive folio subscription geography that taught ordinary literate Britons about the world their country was acquiring. Engraved c.1788–1790, during Bowen's last working years before his death in the Clerkenwell workhouse. The political geography is pre-Second-Partition, pre-French-Revolution — the last snapshot of the old regime before the revolutionary-Napoleonic cataclysm redrew every border on the sheet. Terminal-old-regime geography: Poland shown intact with Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia still labeled as constituent regions; Turkey extends across the full Balkans; the Holy Roman Empire survives as a patchwork of states; Sardinia and the Two Sicilies remain distinct kingdoms. Within a decade, every one of these borders gets contested. Bowen lineage: Thomas Bowen was the son of Emanuel Bowen, Royal Mapmaker to both George II and Louis XV simultaneously. His engraving style is characteristic late-Georgian British work — stippled seas, italic ocean labels curving across open water, coastal hachuring, and clustered molehill mountain icons. Laid paper, uncolored as issued: Copperplate impression on hand-made laid paper with visible chain lines confirming pre-1800 manufacture. Georgian subscription geographies were issued without color to keep costs down; the absence is period-correct. Condition: Toned with foxing and age-appropriate discoloration; brown water stain on the British Isles area is the principal cosmetic issue. Centerline fold from original folio binding. Margins adequate, trimmed close at the imprint edge. Engraving remains crisp and fully readable throughout. For collectors of eighteenth-century cartography, pre-Napoleonic European political geography, or Georgian subscription-publishing artifacts — a Bowen-family plate from the last years of the old regime. Included: Loose plate only. Unframed, unmatted.
