Catalog Archive
Auction 144, Lot 156

"Plan of Boston ", Moule, Thomas

Subject: Boston, England

Period: 1845 (circa)

Publication: The English Counties Delineated

Color: Hand Color

Size:
7.3 x 10 inches
18.5 x 25.4 cm
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Thomas Moule (1784 – 1851) was a writer, bookseller, publisher, topographer and a scholar in heraldry. His varied career led him in 1830 to produce a series of English county map based on his own travel. He wrote that he has “with expensive diligence personally visited every county in England, excepting only Devonshire and Cornwall.” His maps were delicately engraved on steel in a highly decorative style, featured such embellishments as armorial bearings, figures, fancy borders and vignettes of local interest. This amount of ornamentation in mapmaking was unusual for the period as most mapmaker’s were instead creating scientifically accurate, austere works. His series of county maps were originally published in separate sections for each county (1830-32), then subsequently published in a two-volume work: The English Counties Delineated…, (1836). Beginning in 1841, the maps appeared in Barclays Complete and Universal English Dictionary.

A very decorative bird's-eye plan of Boston in Lincolnshire with a border frame incorporating coats of arms. Three lovely vignettes are included: the church and bridge in Boston, Louth Church, and Nocton House.

References:

Condition: A

Attractive color with light soiling in blank margins.

Estimate: $80 - $100

Sold for: $80

Closed on 4/3/2013

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