Scandinavia Map 1794 Wilkinson Sweden Denmark Norway Print with Iceland Inset - Iceland, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bergen

This detailed map of Scandinavia, titled Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and c., was published in London in 1794 by Robert Wilkinson. It carries an inset map of Iceland and a table that lists the dependencies of the northern kingdoms, which gives it more information than a plain map of the lands. Ebenezer Bourne engraved the sheet. Wilkinson was active in London as a cartographic publisher from 1785 to 1825, and the map comes from the productive years of that career, when his General Atlas and his reissue of Bowen and Kitchen's English Atlas were in print. The table of dependencies is an unusual feature, and with the Iceland inset it makes the sheet a compact summary of the northern kingdoms as London viewed them.

Robert Wilkinson lived from 1752 to 1825. The majority of his work appeared between 1794 and 1816, and his major works included A General Atlas and the Atlas Classica, both published in multiple editions. His work was primarily that of a compiler of information from other sources, and he was better known as a printmaker and publisher of books. After John Bowles died in 1779, Wilkinson took over his stock and shop in Cornhill, and he worked in two shops, first at 58 Cornhill and later at 125 Fenchurch Street. His stock was auctioned in 1825.

A collector of English atlas maps, a family with roots in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark or Norway, or a reader of eighteenth-century history will find a useful gift here. TheMapVault's Biurman map of Sweden from 1747 was made in Stockholm, whereas this Wilkinson sheet gathers the northern kingdoms and Iceland on one London page. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print. It would suit a study, a hall or a library. The sheet is a good fit for a collector of Nordic maps.