Thomas Kitchin was apprenticed to the Welsh-born engraver Emanuel Bowen (1693/4–1767). Bowen worked with some of the best hydrographers of his time and produced numerous important maps. Kitchin seems to have been on good terms with Bowen even after completing his apprenticeship: he married Bowen’s daughter Sarah in 1739 and collaborated with Bowen on The Large English Atlas (1749-1760), the first full-fledged attempt to map England in detail on a large scale. Kitchin was appointed as hydrographer to George III in the 1770s and seems to have been generally quite successful and a pillar of his local Baptist community. As an engraver, Kitchin work was clear and precise, with traces of the English rococo, an art style marked by asymmetry, naturalism, and especially by shell-like forms, in his cartouches and decorative touches.

This exhibit contains one map associated with Kitchin:

• A New Map of the British Empire in North America, Drawn from the Latest Authorities (ca. 1785)