Cartographica Helvetica

Summary

Michael Ritter:

The maps by Jeremias Wolff and Johann Friedrich Probst

Cartographica Helvetica 35 (2007) 21–30

Summary:

Art publisher Jeremias Wolff (1663–1724) from Augsburg began publishing maps during the first years of the 18th century. Most of the 22 sheets which he published himself were re-engraved from French originals and he actually acquired only a very few maps from other printers. After Wolff's death, his grandson Johann Friedrich Probst (1721–1781) inherited the stock of maps. He left the maps mostly unchanged and added only his own name and a sheet number. This numbering system would lead one to assume that the maps were assembled into an atlas, of which, however, there has been no trace so far. Around 1760 Probst sold the bulk of his maps to Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717–1777), a copper engraver, who used the maps as a stock for starting his own map publishing firm.

The very complex circumstances surrounding the ownership and production of Jeremias Wolff's maps substantiate the intertwined family relationships and commercial ties prevalent among Augsburg's graphic trade during the Baroque period.