Pierre Duval
Back to people overviewPierre Duval was the nephew and heir of the celebrated French cartographer Nicolas Sanson. Mapmaker to King Louis XIV, Sanson was responsible for the renaissance in geographical efforts in France.
Duval was a member of the French school of cartography and paid attention to precision and scientific detail, discarding the fantastical embellishments of previous generations of mapmakers.
Duval ascended to the position of ‘Géographe du Roi’ to King Louis XIV by 1650 and was employed by the print-seller Pierre Mariette. Pierre Duval advantageously married the daughter of an elite merchant which gained him status amongst Paris’s most sort after map sellers. When he died in 1683, the business passed to his widow and their two daughters, Marie-Angélique Duval and Michelle Duval.
