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A grand and detailed early 18th-century map of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by John Senex, one of England’s most prominent cartographers and globe-makers of the period. This map presents the Commonwealth at the height of its territorial expanse, extending from the Baltic Sea in the north to Transylvania and the Ottoman frontier in the south, and from Silesia and Brandenburg in the west to Smolensk and the Dnieper basin in the east.
The map outlines the major divisions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in delicate hand coloring, marking palatinates and voivodeships such as Podolia, Volhynia, Samogitia, Lithuania proper, and Red Russia. Cities of political and strategic importance (Warsaw, Kraków, Lwów, Vilna, Smolensk) are shown, while mountain ranges, forests, and river systems are engraved with a crisp visual logic characteristic of Senex’s geographic style. To the southeast, the boundary with the "Cossack Territories" and the Black Sea steppe reflects the fluid and contested frontier between Poland and the Ottoman sphere.
Senex issued this map in 1711 as part of his large-format atlas projects, relying on astronomical and topographical observations provided to the Royal Society in London and the Royal Academy in Paris, an Enlightenment gesture underscoring his commitment to empirical accuracy and international scientific exchange. The richly engraved title cartouche in the lower left corner features classical allegorical figures and is dedicated to Sir James Hallet, a London citizen, in the flamboyant baroque style that typified Senex’s cartographic work.
Multiple scales appear beneath the cartouche, translating distances into Polish, Prussian, German, and British leagues, reinforcing the map’s intended utility for international scholars, diplomats, and military officers. Issued just decades before the partitions of Poland began, Senex’s map captures a political entity that still stood among the great European powers of the early modern period, and it remains a cartographic testament to the Commonwealth’s complexity and scale on the eve of its decline.
States
This map represents the second state of the map, evidenced by the absence of Charles Price and John Maxwell's names from the title cartouche.
John Senex (1678-1740) was one of the foremost mapmakers in England in the early eighteenth century. He was also a surveyor, globemaker, and geographer. As a young man, he was apprenticed to Robert Clavell, a bookseller. He worked with several mapmakers over the course of his career, including Jeremiah Seller and Charles Price. In 1728, Senex was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, a rarity for mapmakers. The Fellowship reflects his career-long association as engraver to the Society and publisher of maps by Edmund Halley, among other luminaries. He is best known for his English Atlas (1714), which remained in print until the 1760s. After his death in 1740 his widow, Mary, carried on the business until 1755. Thereafter, his stock was acquired by William Herbert and Robert Sayer (maps) and James Ferguson (globes).
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