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A striking and scarce early 18th-century map of European Russia, published by the noted English cartographer John Senex. Titled Moscovy, the map is “corrected from the observations communicated to the Royal Society of London and Paris,” reflecting the growing reliance on scientific societies for accurate geographic data during the Enlightenment.
Senex’s map covers the western and central portions of the Russian Empire, extending from the Baltic Sea and Finland in the northwest towards the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus in the southeast. It includes the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Novgorod, Astrakhan, Kazan, and the various Tartar khanates and frontier regions, all outlined in fine original wash color. Major rivers such as the Volga, Don, and Dnieper are finely traced, with considerable toponymic density across the steppe and forest zones.
The elaborate title cartouche in the upper right features imperial regalia and a vignette of animals and figures evoking both the Russian court and native peoples. The map integrates both classical and contemporary sources and reflects the early modern European ambition to fix Russia spatially within a scientific cartographic framework, even as its actual control over these territories remained varied and dynamic.
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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