Joseph Roux

(1725 - 1793)

For four generations, the Roux family from Marseilles were renowned hydrographers and marine painters. Joseph, the son of Joseph, “published, manufactured, and sold a wide assortment of charts, navigating instruments, and related nautical gear” (Smith). He achieved the status of “Hidrographe du Roy” in about 1750. In 1764, he published this smaller format atlas of one hundred and twenty-one harbour charts, the Recueil [sic.] des principaux plans des ports et rades de la mer Mediterranée, reprinted well into the nineteenth century.

Roux’s son, Ange-Joseph Antoine, and his grandchildren, Mathieu-Antoine, Ursule-Josephine, Francois Frederic and Francois Geoffroi Roux, were all accomplished marine painters.