Herman Moll

Artist Bio: Herman Moll (1654-1732)

Herman Moll was a German-Dutch cartographer engraver and publisher, who produced and published maps and engravings influential and historically significant in the history of cartography.

Moll started his career in London, UK in 1688 and opened a map store in Vanley’s Court in London’s Blackfriars, after successfully selling his early maps after studying other cartographers such as John Senex and Emanuel Bowen. In the 1690’s, he worked as an engraver for Christopher Browne, Robert Morden, and Lea. During this time Moll also published his first major independent work, the Thesaurus Geographicus. The success of this work prompted Moll to produce and publish his own independent maps, the first; A System of Geography, in 1701, followed by several volumes including Fifty-six new and accurate maps of Great Britain, a book of maps of the British Isles, as well as the vigorously imitated and copied Atlas Geographus, which he produced in 1711. During this time, Moll also began producing finely crafted, full-colour pocket globes, which often included the routes of the voyages explored by his friend; explorer and author William Dampier. Moll had access to the latest data and observations from Dampier’s many voyages, allowing his to be the first to accurately portray ocean currents. Dampier in turn had his best-selling books illustrated by Moll. Another of Molls contemporaries was the author Jonathan Swift, who in his famous book, Gulliver’s Travels, Moll is mentioned.

Much of Moll’s work was intended to publicize and support policy, colonialism, and trade of the British Empire and its empirical power throughout the world, which his engravings illustrated with great detail and also had much influence over his contemporaries. Two of the most famous maps he produced are known as the Beaver Map and the Codfish Map, which were distinctive for their elaborate cartouches and images. The Beaver map particularly is well-known, as it was one of the first and most important documents relating to the ongoing dispute of France and England over boundaries separating their respective American colonies.