Printed part of the etching is approximately 20" wide by 15" tall.Matting is 25.25" by 21"

Very Good, some skillful reinforcement of the folds. Damage above the distance scale on the bottom right, and between fish and boat bottom left.  Other foxing and minor stains consistent with it age.  

Rare first state of the map. This map is from Speed's "Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine"  after Jodocus Hondius 1610 engraving, was described by Christopher Saxton and augmented by John Speed in 1612.  It is on laid paper with a water mark on the one page.  

Please note this is the first plate of the map, the second version of the map and was engraved by Abraham Goos of Amsterdam in c.1646. The previous plate, engraved by Jodocus Hondius, had become too worn.

John Speed (1552-1629) was born in the Cheshire village of Farndon and from his youth pursued his father’s profession of tailoring. He later moved to London to continue this trade, though Speed’s real passions lay elsewhere, namely in the fields of antiquity and cartography. He joined the Society of Antiquaries where his enthusiasm soon attracted the attention of notables such as William Camden and Sir Fulke Greville. In 1596 Greville provided Speed with a full time allowance to write a ‘Historie of Great Britaine’. It was during this project that Speed decided to add a cartographic supplement to the work and it was from this that his famous atlas, ‘The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine’, was born.

When published in 1611/12, his atlas was an immediate success, outdoing the one established by Christoper Saxton in 1579. There were a number reasons for this: Speed’s atlas showed each county separately with its hundreds, was resplendent with heraldic shields but most significantly had one or two town plans. Displayed from a bird’s eye view perspective, many of the towns were surveyed by Speed himself using a distinct ‘scale of paces’ and are the earliest known plans of these places. The aesthetic beauty of the maps were also down to the Dutch engraver, Jodocus Hondius, whose fine calligraphy and decorative strapwork are a feature throughout.