Pieter Cramer (Born 1721) was born and raised in Amsterdam. He was a bachelor and resided close to the Oude Kerk on Oudezijds Voorburgwal. He had bought the house by 1760 - then known as "the Three Kings". In 1774 he made his will stipulating that his drawings should be available to a publisher. So after his death all his drawings went to Anthony van Rensselaer, his nephew. The drawings went under the condition that they were to be printed by Johannes Baalde, the bookseller. As a result, The French Chapels (De Uitlandsche Kapellen) was published. It consisted of thirty three parts, each one issued at intervals of 3 months to the subscribers, in 4 volumes. All of the drawings were accompanied by comprehensive descriptions of the insects. In 1776, Cramer died of high fevers. This was after 8 issues of Volume I had been published.
Cramer’s death left the responsibility for finishing the project to Stoll and Van Rensselaar. Stoll must have authored the text from page 29 of the 4th volume onwards. De Uitlandsche Kapellen (The French Chapels) is a key work in the entomology’s history. It consists of beautifully illustrated images with fine, huge hand-colored engravings of Lepidoptera from America, Africa and Asia. The French Chapels was the first book on exotic Lepidoptera where the new system developed by Carl Linnaeus for classifying and naming animals was used. Many museums, galleries and institutions today have framed Pieter Cramer art hanging on their walls. Cramer and Stoll named and illustrated many new species for the first time.
