An previously unrecorded two-sheet plan of the city of Jerusalem published by John Bowles (1701-79). Courtesy of Ashley Baynton-Williams, it has been identified in Bowles’s catalogue of 1728:

“A DRAUGHT of the City of Jerusalem, and many Things belonging to the Temple, with the Genealogy of Christ our Saviour in the Border thereof, faithfully collected from the holy Scriptures, This Map is on two Sheets of Paper, the Sides of it are ornamented with the six Days of Creation, the building of Noah’s Ark, the building of the Tower of Babel, Moses’s appearing before the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, Aaron offering Incense upon the Golden Altar, the Habits of the High Priests and the other Levites, the preparing the Sacrifices as established by God, the Dedication of the Temple, and many other Things worthy Remark.”

However, the imprint added at the bottom records an address at the Black Horse in Cornhill also found on the plan, an address contemporary adverts show he did not move to until early 1733. This indicates that the plan is in a second state. The accompanying separate descriptive text dates it to 1727.

It is derived ultimately from the same by Christian van Adrichom (1533-85) first published in 1584, accompanied by a pamphlet describing some 270 places and sites in the city. The plan formed the basis of many copies and adaptations by many authors for some two hundred years. It depicts Jerusalem at the time of Christ. Nebenzahl called it ‘the most dramatic and important of the sixteenth century’. He drew on Bernard von Breydenbach’s landmark view of 1486 amongst other sources. It is depicted orientated to the north. Van Adrichom was born of a noble family at Delft in the Netherlands and died in exile at Cologne.

Bowles was one of the most active of the Bowles family of map and print sellers which dominated much of the eighteenth century. This untitled large plan of the city of Jerusalem is not listed in Laor’s work on maps of the Holy Land. Bowles would published the ‘Geographia Sacra Illustrata’ in 1728 which did not include this plate. Refer Laor (1986) 934; refer Nebenzahl (1986) pl. 33; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).