Mappemonde ou Carte Generale de l'Univers sur une projection nouvelle d'une sphere ovale pour mieux...

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Antique original copper engraving. Rare first edition of this unusual large world map on an ovoid projection, published in Augsburg in 1778. Printed from 2 plates. With the addition of Cook's 2nd and 3rd voyages, the coastline of Alaska has been changed and some islands have been added, including Hawaii.

Tobias Conrad Lotter (* September 4, 1717; † July 14, 1777 funeral) was an engraver, cartographer and publisher in Augsburg. Lotter, son of an Augsburg baker and city guardsman, had been working as a map engraver in his workshop since 1740, the year he married his eldest daughter, Matthäus Seutter, and was his most productive employee. Largely on his own responsibility (but still under Seutter), Lotter created the 'Atlas Minor, which was created between 1740 and 1744. Lotter's atlas (Atlas minor. Praecipua orbis terrarum imperia, regna et provincias, Germania potissimum tabelli 80 exactae delineatis sistens usui militiae ducum ac peregrinantium maxime accommodatus opera) consists of 63 - mostly engraved by him - maps from Seutter's Atlas Minor, in which he had inserted his name in the lower margin as the publisher's address, and 16 cards newly created by Lotter. After Seutter's death in 1757, his son Albrecht Karl (1722–1762) continued the company alone. When he also died a few years later, about half of the publishing stock was acquired by Tobias Conrad Lotter and the also closely related art publisher Johann Michael Probst the Elder (1727–1776). Both removed the Seutter name from most of the original records and replaced it with their own. With the support of his sons Matthäus Albrecht (1741–1810), Georg Friedrich (1744–1801) and Gustav Conrad (1746–1776), Tobias Conrad Lotter was able to build on the economic success and professional reputation of his father-in-law. However, under the leadership of the two eldest sons, the company's gradual decline began. After Matthäus Albrecht's death (1810) it sank under his sons Gabriel (1776–1857) and Georg Friedrich (1787–1864) until it became completely insignificant in the middle of the 19th century. The publishing legacy of Tobias Conrad Lotter's son Gustav Conrad, who died early, was acquired in 1789 by the Augsburg art publisher Johann Martin Will and his son-in-law Johann Walch, who thereby laid the foundation for his own up-and-coming map publishing company. (Wikipedia)