Name: Herman MOLL
Dates: (1678-1732)
Map type: Copper plate engraved maps printed on handmade paper.
Herman Moll was Dutch cartographer working out of London premises from around 1678. Here he engraved for a number of already established map makers, most notably the chartist Capt. Greenville Collins. After establishing himself, Moll had the means and skills to set up his own business through which he published maps, charts and atlases.
It soon became clear that he was working with an evolving and distinctive style of map: detailed and yet highly decorative. Each map had substantial and highly decorative title cartouches. His reputation continued to lead him to gainful contracts, culminating in his spectacular folio atlas entitled: The World Described. Featuring an exceptional world map, both in size and content. Moll notoriously depicted, amongst other noted inaccuracies, California as an island and Australia attached to New Guinea. Although other maps of this time had dispensed with these notions, Moll continued to publish maps with these fanciful ideas. Little did he know that it would be these dubious features that would make his maps quite so sought in the future.
1724 saw Moll published the New Description of England, in which he included a delightful collection of small county maps, usually easily identified by the columns of interesting pictorials to the left and/or right borders of each map.
It soon became clear that he was working with an evolving and distinctive style of map: detailed and yet highly decorative. Each map had substantial and highly decorative title cartouches. His reputation continued to lead him to gainful contracts, culminating in his spectacular folio atlas entitled: The World Described. Featuring an exceptional world map, both in size and content. Moll notoriously depicted, amongst other noted inaccuracies, California as an island and Australia attached to New Guinea. Although other maps of this time had dispensed with these notions, Moll continued to publish maps with these fanciful ideas. Little did he know that it would be these dubious features that would make his maps quite so sought in the future.
1724 saw Moll published the New Description of England, in which he included a delightful collection of small county maps, usually easily identified by the columns of interesting pictorials to the left and/or right borders of each map.