IMPORTANT MAP OF DERBYSHIRE
Burdett (P.P.) To The Right Honourable The President, Vice-Presdient"¦of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c, This Survey of Derbyshire, Began in the Year 1762, and finished in the Year 1767"¦ [c.1767], London, Kitchin and Derby, Burdett. Large engraved map on six sheets laid on linen, partly hand-coloured in outline; rococo cartouche, inset plan of Derby and trigonometry diagram, vignette of rocks lower left. The paper c.1550 x 1040mm, scale one inch to one mile.
The expected age-toning and cockling/crinkling to the paper, the extremities tatty and chipped, with a few mostly small tears into the plate (one c.20cm from the top); spots of mould and associated soiling to right margin, getting more pronounced into lower right corner. No loss within printed border.
Peter Perez Burdett's map of Derbyshire won him the £100 premium (prize) offered by the Society of Arts to encourage accurate county mapping. He later published the first aquatint in England, and sold his new process to Paul Sandby. A fine draughtsman and noted expert in perspective, he was the first President of the Liverpool Society of Arts and exhibited in London at the Society of Artists. His Derbyshire acquaintances included Joseph Wright, who painted a fine portrait of Burdett and his first wife, Hannah (in the Národní Galerie, Prague). Burdett left for Germany to escape his debts in 1774, working for the Margrave of Baden as surveyor, never to return to England.
A scarce example of the first edition of this map, which very rarely appears on the market