A pictorial view of the county with foreground vignettes of county scenery. First published in George Bickham’s fully engraved ‘British Monarchy’ c.1743. Of extreme rarity, only seven examples of the atlas are recorded. The maps are highly collected for their distinctiveness. Below the title is a dedication to the Lord Lieutenant of the county. George Bickham senior (1684?-1758) and George Bickham junior (1704?-71) were both drawing masters, engravers, print sellers, and publishers. They are most known for their popular work on calligraphy entitled the ‘Universal Penman’ 1733-41. The ‘British Monarchy’ had a similar publishing history in that it too was published in parts. It was to be similarly an entirely engraved work and was announced on 8 October 1743. At first there was no intention to include a series of county maps. When they were included, they were allegorical birds-eye images which can hardly be described as maps, but which are highly collected as such. The accompanying descriptive text shows well his skill with script. Provenance: private English collection; Bonhams Oxford 27 September 2011 lot 101; Clive A. Burden Ltd. 2011; private English collection. Hodson 217; Lyon ‘A Bird’s-eye View of the Bickhams’ in The Map Collector no. 2 pp. 30-3; MCC 27, no. 7; Quixley (1966) no. 34.