Reiner & Joshua OTTENS

Reiner Ottens (1698-1750) and Joshua Ottens (1704-1765) were born and died in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They were brothers and part of a prominent cartographic dynasty. The enterprise was originally founded in 1711 by their father, Joachim Ottens (1663-1719), a former copperplate engraver who had trained and worked under the prolific Dutch cartographer Frederick de Wit. Following Joachim’s death in 1719, the workshop was temporarily managed by his widow before being formally transferred to Reiner and Joshua, who established a legal partnership in October 1726. The brothers operated the workshop under the name “In de Wereldcaert” (“In the World Map”) in central Amsterdam, marking the family’s most prolific period of publication.

The Ottens brothers were active during a period when the commercial supremacy of Dutch cartography was yielding to more scientifically advanced French geographical data. In response to this shifting market, the brothers excelled as enterprising compilers and publishers, heavily acquiring, updating, and reusing existing copper plates from older Dutch masters like Hugo Allard, Caspar Specht, and Frederick de Wit. Furthermore, they integrated contemporary geographical knowledge by extensively copying or adapting French maps drafted by Nicholas Sanson and Guillaume Delisle. The definitive milestone achievement of the Ottens firm was the introduction of massive, multi-volume, custom-assembled atlases compiled to order, such as their expansive Atlas Major, which could contain hundreds of magnificently coloured maps. Following Reiner’s death in 1750, Joshua continued the enterprise alone, and after his own passing in 1765, the family stock and workshop were maintained by his widow and her son, Reiner II, until approximately 1780.

Reiner and Joshua Ottens will be remembered as highly enterprising publishers who sustained the tradition of grand Dutch atlas production through the commercial compilation, refinement, and artistic colouring of the era’s collective cartographic knowledge.