Thomas Kitchin (1719 – 1784)
Map of Oxfordshire (1764)
Engraving with later hand-colouring
72 x 54 cm
This decorative map of Oxfordshire features a cartouche with three concentrating scholars and various educational trappings like rolls of parchment. The cartouche in the upper right corner dedicates the map to Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough, whose family seat of Blenheim Palace is just outside the city of Oxford. The map also sports a list of the University of Oxford’s colleges, its rectories and vicarages, and a paragraph on the Earls of Oxford.
Thomas Kitchin was an English engraver and cartographer. He was born in London and was apprenticed to the map engraver Emanuel Bowen in 1732. He produced John Elphinstone’s map of Scotland (1746), the Geographia Scotiae (1749), and The Small English Atlas (1749) with Thomas Jefferys. Kitchen worked for the London Magazine and for the King; there is also some debate as to whether he passed off other cartographers’ work as his own.
Condition: generally very good; central fold as issued, another fold to middle of top half, three tiny losses (a millimetre or two) just outside plate mark to left side.
If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056.
