Weigel Family

Christoph the Elder (1654–1725), was a goldsmith, engraver, illustrator and publisher – brother to Johann Christoph (1661–1726), engraver and art dealer, and uncle to Christoph the Younger (c. 1702–1777). They worked with other publishers, including Johann David Köhler and Adam Friedrich Zürner (1679–1742, Geographer of Poland) – for whom J. C . Weigel engraved maps of Germany in 1715 for “Continuirter Atlas Portatilis Germanicus”, whose editions went to 1765. Also, Christoph the Elder’s map “Poloniӕ & Lithvania accurante curatius”, published c. 1715–1720, appears to have been originally inscribed “Polonia & Lithvania…” the “a” in Polonia hastily changed to “ӕ,” a change not made to the end of “Lithvania”. Contrary to many sources, “REGNUM POLONIÆ ejusque confinia” was not engraved by Weigel for “Atlas Portatilis Germanicus” – that map does not appear in that atlas. Weigel and his family published the map of Poland–Lithuania in “Atlas portatilis, oder, Compendieuse Vorstellung der gantzen Welt…” in three editions: 1717, 1724 (Tooley says 1720) and 1745. Individual sheets of that map were also sold at fairs. A re-engraved – possibly by Petrus Schenk – version with different labeling in the cartouche and elsewhere was claimed published by Zürner in 1729–1730, but that change happened right after the first edition. An identification guide based on having looked at
every page of four atlases, and comparing 15 different prints with claimed publication dates from 1715 to 1770.