By Mary Alice Lowenthal and Helen Wallis

SINCE AUTUMN 1991 when "Discovery of the Rawlinson copperplate maps of the Americas and their related prints" by Pearce S. Grove and Helen M. Wallis appeared in The Map Collector (Issue 56) Mary Alice Lowenthal and Helen Wallis have undertaken further researches on the Rawlinson-Holkham series. The plates in Richard Rawlinson's collection in the Bodleian Library comprise Plate A (a general map), and Plates I, II, III, VIII, IX and X. To recapitulate, in May 1991 Helen Wallis found at Holkham Hall in Norfolk, in John Innys' System of Cosmography, completed about 1750, prints from all the Rawlinson plates except I and IX. She then identified prints bearing the numbers IV, V and VII as the missing items in the series, and set out an almost complete list of plates and prints (TMC 56, p.21). Only one item, no. VI, remained to be found.

Prints IV (plans of New York city and harbour) and V (View of Fort George with the City of New York) are signed by John Carwitham as the engravers. These are the only ones in the series with an engraver's name. None has an author's name. In investigating Carwitham's work on American subjects, we checked I.N. Phelps Stokes and Daniel Haskell's American Historical Prints (New York, 1933). Mary Alice Lowenthal noticed that plate number VI is displayed outside the neat line on Carwitham's engraving "A South East View of the Great Town of Boston in New England in America."[1] The Boston print fits well into the series. First, the engraver Carwitham is known to be responsible for the map and view of New York (nos. IV and V). Secondly, Boston was one of the most important cities in colonial North America. We thus identify Carwitham's view of Boston as the missing item, no. VI in the series, and so have completed the list.

Carwitham has used William Burgis' view of Boston, published in about 1722, as his basic source. Phelps Stokes and Haskell believed the date depicted was 1731-36, making it from the same period as "A View of Fort George." Although little is known about John Carwitham, he seems to have worked between 1723 and 1741. Thus the Boston plate was engraved well before the example in New York Public Library which has the VI and the imprint of Carington Bowles, as does the later edition of Carwitham's New York. Another example of Boston, lacking the plate number and the imprint, which Phelps Stokes and Haskell assumed to be the first state, is in the Library of Congress.

In 1739 Carwitham was working for John Bowles (1701-1779) who traded at the Black Horse in Cornhill and was one of the most successful of London print publishers and sellers. His son, Carington Bowles, inherited his uncle Thomas' premises in St. Paul's Churchyard and ran his business between 1764 and 1793.[2 ]Thomas Bowles, John's elder brother, had been trading in St Paul's Churchyard since 1712, and was in a good position to know the brothers William and John Innys at the Princes Arms, situated at the corner of St Paul's Churchyard and Ludgate Street, London.

Carwitham's views, Plates V and VI, are the only prints in the Rawlinson-Holkham series which went into publication. In their later states New York and Boston featured in the Scenographia Americana series, which was designed for an American public and very popular in the 1760s and 1770s.[3] Another state of the view of Boston, also published by Carington Bowles, has the numeral 34 in place of the VI. A "Fourth" state, as identified by Phelps Stokes and Haskell, has the imprint Bowles and Carver, which is the imprint of Henry Bowles, who took over the business from his father. The title has been changed from "Great Town" to "City". An example is in the Boston Public Library.

Carwitham also engraved a view of the City of Philadelphia, published by Carington Bowles and later by Bowles and Carver. In so far as we are aware, the earliest print has number 38 in the lower left corner. No example of Philadelphia by Carwitham is found in the Innys volumes at Holkham Hall. The collection, however, does include another rare and perhaps unique example of Carwitham's American work, a view of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, South Carolina.

Carwitham's three contributions to the Rawlinson-Holkham series - the map and views of New York and Boston-significantly enlarge the range of the series to span the thirteen colonies of North America, together with Surinam and the West Indies. We are continuing our researches to discover exactly what publication was intended when the Rawlinson-Holkham plates and prints were engraved and numbered to form a series.

Note: Helen Wallis wishes to make a correction and addition to the information on the Innys brothers given in her earlier article in TMC. First, William and John Innys were publishers and booksellers but not printers. Secondly, by 1730 John Innys had come out of the partnership with William and had set up a business on his own which was something other than bookselling. (The last entry of his name as a publisher appears in 1729). For this information she is grateful to Michael Treadwell, Trent University, Ontario, Canada

References:

1. Phelps Stokes and Haskell, American Historical Prints (New York, 1933) p. 14, no. P 1731-36-B-54.
2. Bernard Adams, London Illustrated 1604-1851, London, 1983, pp.65, 69, 449.
3. Sinclair Hitchings, "London's Images of Colonial America ", in Joan D. Dolmetsch (ed.), Eighteenth-Century Prints in Colonial America, to educate and decorate, (Williamsburg, 1979, pp.21, 23).

COPYRIGHT 1993 Mary Alice Lowenthal and Helen Wallis, All rights reserved.
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