1786 Schrämbl Wall Map of Persia, Arabia and India

Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (1697 - 1782) was perhaps the most important and prolific cartographer of the 18th century. D'Anville's passion for cartography manifested during his school years when he amused himself by composing maps for Latin texts. There is a preserved manuscript dating to 1712, Graecia Vetus, which may be his earliest surviving map - he was only 15 when he drew it. He would retain an interest in the cartography of antiquity throughout his long career and published numerous atlases to focusing on the ancient world. At twenty-two D'Anville, sponsored by the Duke of Orleans, was appointed Geographer to the King of France. As both a cartographer and a geographer, he instituted a reform in the general practice of cartography. Unlike most period cartographers, D'Anville did not rely exclusively on earlier maps to inform his work, rather he based his maps on intense study and research. His maps were thus the most accurate and comprehensive of his period - truly the first modern maps. Thomas Basset and Philip Porter write: "It was because of D'Anville's resolve to depict only those features which could be proven to be true that his maps are often said to represent a scientific reformation in cartography." (The Journal of African History, Vol. 32, No. 3 (1991), pp. 367-413). In 1754, when D'Anville turned 57 and had reached the height of his career, he was elected to the Academie des Inscriptions. Later, at 76, following the death of Philippe Buache, D'Anville was appointed to both of the coveted positions Buache held: Premier Geographe du Roi, and Adjoint-Geographer of the Academie des Sciences. During his long career D'Anville published some 211 maps as well as 78 treatises on geography. D'Anville's vast reference library, consisting of over 9000 volumes, was acquired by the French government in 1779 and became the basis of the Depot Geographique - though D'Anville retained physical possession his death in 1782. Remarkably almost all of D'Anville's maps were produced by his own hand. His published maps, most of which were engraved by Guillaume de la Haye, are known to be near exact reproductions of D'Anville' manuscripts. The borders as well as the decorative cartouche work present on many of his maps were produced by his brother Hubert-Francois Bourguignon Gravelot. The work of D'Anville thus marked a transitional point in the history of cartography and opened the way to the maps of English cartographers Cary, Thomson and Pinkerton in the early 19th century. More by this mapmaker...

Franz Anton Schrämbl (Schraembl; 1751 - December 13, 1803) was a Vienna-based cartographer working in the later part of the 18th century. Schrämbl was born in Vienna. He became director of the normal school in Troppau but soon quit to set up a bookshop in Vienna. In 1787, with fellow Austrian Franz Johann Joseph von Reilly (1766 - 1820), he founded a publishing firm. He began his great work, the Allgemeiner Grosser Atlas, in the same year. This ambitious large format atlas was to be based upon only the most up-to-date cartographic information available, among them cartographers J. B. B. D'Anville (1697 - 1782) and James Rennel (1742 - 1830), and explorers such as James Cook (1728 - 1779), Charles Roberts (1739 - 1825), and others. The atlas was published in 1800 and became the first Austrian commercial world atlas. The work experienced minimal circulation, possibly due to its high cost. The low sales nearly drove Schrämbl into insolvency, but he recovered through diversification into literature and art books. When Franz Anton died in 1803, his widow Johanna and her brother, the engraver Karl Robert Schindelmayer (1769 - 1839), assumed control of the firm. In 1825, his son, Eduard Schrämbl, took over. Learn More...