Pierre Mortier (also known as Pieter Mortier) was baptised on January 26, 1661, in Leiden, Netherlands, and died on February 13, 1711, in Amsterdam. He was the son of a political refugee from France and the grandson of a French couple who had immigrated to Leiden in 1625. Mortier initiated a highly successful family publishing lineage. Between 1681 and 1685, he travelled to Paris, where he trained as an apprentice to a local bookseller. This period in France allowed him to build a vast network of professional contacts and gain critical expertise in French publishing systems, which later formed the foundation of his commercial success.
Upon returning to the Dutch Republic, Mortier established himself as a bookseller and publisher in Amsterdam in 1685. Recognising that the centre of geographical innovation was shifting from the Netherlands to France, he secured a crucial marketing advantage in 1690 by obtaining the exclusive Dutch privilege to publish and distribute maps and atlases by contemporary French geographers. This allowed him to commercially challenge domestic competitors by printing high-quality copies of works by renowned figures such as Nicolas Sanson, Hubert Jaillot, and Guillaume de L’Isle. Mortier is particularly celebrated for financing and publishing the Dutch edition of Le Neptune François (1693), a lavish and highly expensive sea chart atlas based on French naval manuscripts and astronomical data. Following his death, his widow, Amelia ’s-Gravensande, managed the business until 1719. The company eventually transitioned to his son, Cornelis Mortier, who co-founded Covens & Mortier in 1721 with his brother-in-law Johannes Covens, a firm that expanded upon Mortier’s inventory to become the largest cartographic publishing house of the 18th century.
Pierre Mortier will be remembered as the strategic entrepreneur, who successfully bridged the French and Dutch publishing worlds, revitalising the Amsterdam map market through the commercial reproduction of cutting-edge French cartography.
Amsterdam: MORTIER, Pierre, 1700
47.3 x 40.2 cm / 18.6 x 15.8 in
Description This is Pierre Mortier’s peculiar world map, drawn on Mercator’s projection. It is unique in its decorative use of four insets at the top. It also features several cartographic myths. The insets consist, from left to.....