Connecticut, and Parts adjacent by ROMANS, Bernard (circa 1720-1784) - 1780

Amsterdam: Covens and Mortier and Covens Junior, 1780. Copper-engraved map, engraved by H. Klockhoff, after Bernard Romans, with original outline colour, in very good condition, period-style black and gold frame. A very rare and highly attractive map of Connecticut and Long Island This beautiful and important map was one of four of Bernard Romans' maps of various parts of the American colonies to be re-engraved and published by the renowned Dutch firm of cartographers Covens and Mortier and Covens Junior. The present map is taken from the extremely rare 1777 map currently known in only four examples. No copies of this 1780 version are recorded as having sold at auction in the past thirty years. Connecticut is shown divided into six counties, each of which is outlined in colour, with the main towns coloured in red. The beautiful vignette-cartouche containing the title (in the lower right corner) is of a naturalistically presented Connecticut village scene. Born in Holland, Bernard Romans arrived in America in 1757 and spent a number of years working in the southeast. His two large `whole sheet maps' of Florida were completed in 1774, and at about this time he moved to Hartford, Connecticut. During the Revolutionary War he served in New York on the American side. All of his maps are extremely scarce, in most cases being known by only a few copies, and it is only through re-engraved versions such as the present example that the present generation of map collectors can hope to own examples of this important American cartographer's work. Cf. Diamant, Bernard Romans Forgotten Patriot of the American Revolution (Harrison, NY, 1985), pp.132-134; McCorkle, New England in Early Printed Maps, C780.1; Sellers & Van Ee, Maps & Charts of North America & West Indies, 1023; Thompson, Maps of Connecticut (1940 ed.), 28; Wheat & Brun, Maps Printed in America before 1800 , 261-3.