The Schenk Family

Petrus Schenk (1660-1718), the founder of one of the best-known publishing firms of Amsterdam in the 18th century, was born in Elberfeld, Germany, in 1660. He went to Amsterdam, where he became a pupil of the engraver Gerard Valck. On 19 Nov. 1686, a privilegio was granted to Petrus Schenk and Gerard Valk for the manufacturing and selling their prints—Schenk’s contribution to cartography dates from c. 1695. In 1706, he moved to the Vijgendam in Amsterdam, ‘in Sanson’s Atlas’. After he died in 1718, his son, Leonardus Schenk, continued the art and print shop. The second son, Petrus II (1693-1775), settled in another famous house: ‘in Visscher’s Atlas’, where he continued associating with Gerard and Leonarus Valck.
The Schenk family produced general geographical atlases and special atlases. Apart from seventy original maps, several hundred are known as Schenk, printed from plates obtained from Janssonius and Visscher. Schenk and Valck acquired all the plates of the Janssonius Heir’s Novus Atlas, including the Celestial Atlas. Many of Janssonius’ plates were reworked and amended.
Republishing maps from Janssonius’ Novus Atlas since c. 1680 was followed by engraving new maps copied from Sanson’s better and more modern maps. Petrus Schenk published these maps in his Atlas Contractus sive mapparum geographicarum Sansoniarum auctarum et correctum Nova Congeries, also called Atlas Minor. After 1719, Petrus Schenk II continued the Atlas Contractus.
Petrus Schenk, the elder, enjoyed great fame as a print seller and artist among art and print dealers in the whole of Europe. The great activity in map publishing, displayed by Petrus Schenk, the elder, was continued by his son and grandson. But the number of original atlas maps is small. Like his father, who bought the copperplates of Janssonius’ atlas, Petrus Schenk II bought many of the plates formerly owned by Nicolaas Visscher.
Apart from the globes, maps and atlases, Petrus Schenk II published many books. In 1733, he was older men of the booksellers guild in 1733.

Petrus Schenk Junior (1728-1803) was an engraver and artseller. He continued to publish many of the titles his father and grandfather issued, and the globes of his uncle Leonard Valk.