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Yorkshireman's historic atlas expected to fetch £158,000 in US auction
AN Elizabethan atlas of England and Wales by Yorkshire-born Christopher Saxton, "the father of English cartography", is set to fetch up to a quarter of a million dollars – £158, 000 – at auction in New York this month.
The 1579 rarity – with a colourful and ornate frontispiece showing Queen Elizabeth as Patroness of Astronomy and Geography – is among American collector Graham Arader's 16th to 19th century American and European books, maps and paintings going under the hammer at Sotheby's on June 19.
Little is known about Saxton's personal life, although he was born in West Yorkshire between 1542 and 1544 and his yeoman family were probably clothiers and farmers. It appears he was apprenticed in cartographic draughtsmanship and surveying to John Rudd, Vicar of Dewsbury (1554-1570) and Rector of Thornhill (1558-1578).
Rudd had a passion for maps, and was engaged at some time in the 1550s in making a "platt" of England. In 1561 he was granted leave to travel further to map the country. It is suggested that Saxton accompanied him on these travels, at which time he would have been about 17.
Saxton was definitely employed by Rudd by 1570 but later struck out on his own in London and was chosen by court official Thomas Seckford to survey and map the counties of England and Wales.
By the late 1580s he was established as a professional land surveyor. As the first man to survey England and Wales, his contribution to cartography is unquestionable. Saxton died in 1610 or 1611.
A Sotheby's spokesman described the lot as "a fine extra-illustrated copy of a landmark of Elizabethan cartography".
MAP MAKER BROKE NEW GROUND
Saxton achieved unparalleled accuracy without the aid of modern equipment or technology
His map of England was, at the time, the only large scale map of the country
He drew sketches of rounded hills to give a sense of the terrain, adding a three-dimensional aspect to maps rarely seen at the time
An artist as much as a cartographer, Saxton embellished maps of the sea with fanciful ships and sea creatures
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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