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Description

Striking large format map of Europe, published by Herman Moll in his New and Compleat Atlas, first published in 1708.

The early editions of the map bear the portrait of Queen Anne. The portrait would have changed sometime in or after 1727, when Caroline of Ansbach became the Queen Consort.

The map includes a decorative cartouche, with a portrait of Queen Caroline and Coat of Arms and 4 ornate figures, including two American Indians, a European carrying a flag and a fourth figure in turban and robe.

The map includes an inset showing the canal which Peter the Great had dug that connected the Volga and the Don, thus connecting the Caspian and Black Seas. A dotted line illustrates the route from the place where the Don and Volga meet, through the Black Sea, through the Bosporus, the Aegean, and Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

Herman Moll was one of the most important London map makers in the first half of the 18th Century. Moll was probably born in Bremen, Germany, but moved to London to escape the Scanian Wars. His earliest work was as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas, a failed work which landed Pitt in Debtor's Prison.

Moll's work quickly helped him become a member of a group which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill, where speculators met to trade stock. Moll's circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers, and William Hacke. From these contacts, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was included in his maps.

Herman Moll Biography

Herman Moll (c. 1654-1732) was one of the most important London mapmakers in the first half of the eighteenth century.  Moll was probably born in Bremen, Germany, around 1654. He moved to London to escape the Scanian Wars. His earliest work was as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas, a failed work which landed Pitt in debtor's prison. Moll also engraved for Sir Jonas Moore, Grenville Collins, John Adair, and the Seller & Price firm. He published his first original maps in the early 1680s and had set up his own shop by the 1690s. 

Moll's work quickly helped him become a member of a group which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill, where speculators met to trade stock. Moll's circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and William Hacke. From these contacts, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was included in his maps. 

Over the course of his career, he published dozens of geographies, atlases, and histories, not to mention numerous sheet maps. His most famous works are Atlas Geographus, a monthly magazine that ran from 1708 to 1717, and The World Described (1715-54). He also frequently made maps for books, including those of Dampier’s publications and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Moll died in 1732. It is likely that his plates passed to another contemporary, Thomas Bowles, after this death.