Code: 57214
Date: 1794
Long title: Palaestina By. Mons D'Anville of the Royal Academy of Belles Letters and of that of Sciences of Petersburg Secreatry to H.S.H. the Duke of Orleans. IN June MDCCLXVII
Copper engraving with original outline hand colouring. Overall sheet size : 72.5cms x 54.4cms; image size(measured to plate mark): 458mm x 397mm This map of ancient Palestine/ Israel /the Holy Land covers from the ancient city of Sidon in modern day Lebanon south as far as the city of Gaza , Rapha and on to Egypt. It shows mountains, rivers, cities, roadways, and lakes. There are three insets. The upper left inset details the lands claimed by each of the Tribes of Israel. The lower left inset features a plan of Jerusalem as it may have looked in antiquity it notes the Temple, Calvary, and the Mount of Olives. A further inset in the lower right quadrant shows distances between various ancient cities in the region. The title area appears in a raised zone above the map proper. Includes eight distance scales, bottom right, referencing various measurement systems common in antiquity.
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville was a child prodigy and reputed to have designed his first map at the age of fifteen. Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (11th July 1697 - 28th January 1782) was a French cartographer, geographer, and antiquarian, who revolutionised map making during the latter half of the eighteenth century. He did not copy the earlier cartographers but insisted on verifiable evidence. The resulting maps looked vastly different from the work of his predecessors. He concentrated on factual depiction and omitted the ornamental flourishes of earlier mapmakers. In 1754 he became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, and in 1775 was appointed first geographer to King Louis XVI.
Laurie and Whittle were apprentices of Robert Sayer: Laurie was apprenticed to Robert Sayer in 1770 and made free in 1777. He was a skilled artist, who exhibited at the Society of Artists from 1770, winning a silver palette for a drawing in 1770, and he was also an accomplished engraver of mezzotint portraits and produced views and other decorative items. In about 1792 he returned to the Sayer business and took it over from the ailing Sayer in 1794.
Whittle was apprenticed into the Needlemakers’ Company, evidently made free by 1792, and joined with Laurie to take over the Sayer business in 1794.
Sayer left the two a 21-year lease on the shop (at £100 a year) and on Sayer's Bolt Court premises, as well as an option to acquire stock and equipment at a preferential price of £5,000 payable over three years.The foundation of their business was the existing Sayer stock of printing plates, both for maps and atlases and also decorative prints, but they continued to add new material to freshen up the atlases, as well as separately published maps relating to current events, particularly the Napoleonic wars..
Laurie retired in 1812. His son Richard Holmes Laurie replaced him in the partnership and, eventually, took over the firm after Whittle’s death in 1818. Under the influence of Richard Holmes Laurie, the partnership became noted as chartmakers and publishers, with the business existing to the current day as Imray, Laurie, Norie and Wilson.
