This new map of the world was originally prepared by Jaillot for his 'Atlas Royale' which was published by de Fer in 1695 and 1699. The two hemispheres are little changed from those in Jaillot's larger map of the world (1674) (Shirley 462) but the decorative surround is more detailed and lavish. "Eight large allegorical figures are shown, each with symbols of governance and the arts or, below the hemispheres, against a background representing the four continents. French possessions in Canada are prominently marked 'Canada ou Nouvelle France'; California remains an island and the coastline of the southern continent is retained. The map is attractively engraved and is much less commonly found than some of the earlier issues of Jaillot's maps" (Shirley).

There are four states of this later map, of which this is the third, with the imprint of the Ottens brothers.

The mapmakers
The Frenchman Alexis-Hubert Jaillot was born in the small hamlet of Avignon in Franche Comte. In 1657 he traveled to Paris with his brother Simon and found employment as a sculptor. He was fortunate to meet the Flemish engraver Nicolas Berey, the publisher and mapmaker to the Queen. His subsequent marriage to Jeanne Berey resulted in Jaillot joining his father-in-law in trade. Much of Jaillot's work depended on the maps of his predecessor, Nicolas Sanson d'Abberville (1600-1667), the greatest French map-maker of his generation and the founder of the French School of Geography. The great fire of 1672 destroyed the Blaeu mapmaking empire in Holland and Jaillot quickly acted to fill the gap now left in the market. Near 1670, Sanson's sons entered into collaboration with Jaillot to produce the monumental 'Atlas Nouveau', which included enlarged and embellished renderings of Sanson's magnificent maps. Jaillot's efforts awarded him the title of Royal Geographer by Louis XIV.

Joachim Ottens (1663-1719) was a Dutch engraver who established a multi-generational family business. The Ottens firm, founded in 1711, was a publishing and printing business, selling books, maps, and views. His sons, Joshua and Reinier Ottens, continued the firm after their father's death in 1719, changing its name in 1726 to R & I Ottens. They won great success with their huge and magnificently coloured composite atlases, entitled the 'Atlas Major', which were comprised of maps by earlier or contemporary German, French, and Dutch cartographers. Some examples of these volumes, all of which were made to order and tailored to the specific customer's requests, contain over 800 separately issued maps.

On the death of Reinier I in 1750, his son Reinier II continued his work, but with reversed order of names, as Joshua & Reinier Ottens, until Joshua's death in 1765. The Ottens family specialized in the reprinting of others' work, especially Frederick de Wit, Guillaume Delisle, and Nicolaes Visscher.