Wonderful little Du Val map of the Maldives Islands with the various archipelagos and islands named.
It is rare to find individual maps of the Maldives from the 17th century.
Pierre Duval (1618-1683) was a French geographer, cartographer, and publisher who worked in Abbeville and Paris during the seventeenth century. He was born in the former city, in northeast France, before moving to Paris. Duval was the nephew of the famous cartographer Nicolas Sanson, from whom he learned the mapmaker's art and skills. Both men worked at the royal court, having followed Louis XIV's request for artists to relocate to Paris. In addition to numerous maps and atlases, Du Val's opus also includes geography texts. He held the title of Géographe Ordinaire du Roi from 1650 and died in 1683, when his wife and daughters took over his business.