A Map of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Lussatia, with great part of Saxony & Brandenburg, Shewing the Present Seat of War in Germany. Published for The Gentleman's Magazine in London and dated in the plate "Publish'd according to Act of Parliament Dec. 1: 1756". An inset at the right gives the plan of the Battle of Lobositz, fought on 1 October 1756, and four engraved tables give distances from Ratisbon, Vienna, Berlin and Prague. Scale bars are given in English, German and Bohemian miles beneath an ornate Rococo cartouche.
This sheet was rushed into print. Frederick the Great marched into Saxony in the late summer of 1756 and the British public wanted to know where. A monthly magazine could not wait for a surveyor, so the engraver worked from the best available material and had the plate on the press within weeks of the news arriving. That is why the distance tables matter more than they might appear: a reader following the campaign in the papers needed to know how far Frederick's army had to march between Dresden and Prague, and this map answered the question in both German computed miles and English ones.
Original antique copperplate engraving, not a reproduction. Sheet measures 11 x 15 in (28 x 38 cm). Laid paper. Fair condition with age-toning, edge wear and handling marks consistent with age; please see the photographs, which form part of the description.
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