A fine bird’s eye Tudor perspective view of the historic town of Chester first published in 1581. Its origins are unclear but believed to have been supplied by William Smith (1546-1618) more often referred to as the anonymous mapmaker. Smith was educated at Oxford and from an early age he was interested in maps as his first surviving work is a town plan of 1568. In 1572-73 he translated the text of the German edition of Abraham Ortelius’ ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ into English. He was a resident of Nuremberg from c.1575-c.1584 where he worked as the landlord of the Golden Goose Inn in what is now the Winklerstrasse, at a time when the town was the principal map-making centre of south Germany. He produced a description of Nuremberg with a mixture of views, town plans, regional maps, and descriptive text of the town’s history, economy and constitution. It undoubtedly provided the inspiration to John Norden’s similar later works of the counties.

This plan of Chester provided to George Braun and Frans Hogenberg was included in their third volume of the ‘Civitates Orbis Terrerum’. It is a view of the city across the river from the south. The river and Dee bridge are prominent. A nearby legend describes how the city divides England and Wales. With figures and a dog in the foreground. This example with French text to the verso indicates its issue in 1583. Provenance: Clive A. Burden Ltd. Fordham (1965) p. 5; Koeman (1967-70) II B & H 3, no. 3.