Maps of Yorkshire

Two printed maps of Yorkshire from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century

Sutton Nicholls was born in Kent in 1668. A member of the Weaver's Company it is believed he served his apprenticeship under Philip Lea. As an engraver, draughtsman and globe-maker he was responsible for a large number of maps from the late 1680s. It is believed the map of Yorkshire was one of many that were commissioned by Henry Overton. He also drew and then engraved a number of views of London as well as botanical and anatomical studies, portraits and bookplates etc. He died in Oct 1729.

Pieter van den Keere was born c.1570 in Gent, the son of the printer and type founder Hendric van den Keere the Younger. Because of religious unrest, he fled his homeland for England and worked in London as an engraver. Early plates by Van den Keere feature in John Norden's Speculum Britanniae published in 1593 including aerial views of London and Westminster Abbey. His map of Yorkshire is believed to be based on Saxton's earlier maps.

In 1596 he returned to Holland and settled in Amsterdam, where in 1609 he began publishing in addition to his activities as an engraver. In 1617, the atlas of the Netherlands Germania inferior appeared, bearing his name as the publisher and his full signature on several of the maps. In addition to various topographical folio pages, including those of Amsterdam (1618) and Nuremberg (1619), Van den Keere engraved a world map ("Nova totius terrarum orbis...") in 1621, which was printed by Jan Janzoon in Amsterdam. He ran a busy engraving business, but in the 1620s he began to concentrate more in the business of engraving than as an engraver himself. Pieter van den Keere died in Gent in 1630.

Access will be granted to any accredited reader

Purchased from Artlink Gallery, Beverley, October 1994 and April 1995

The Local Studies collections include numerous maps of the East Riding and Yorkshire. See also U DX20 for John Cary's 1810 Map of Yorkshire U DDCA2/53/5 for 1808 Map of Yorkshire, printed for C. Smith.