1736 Seutter Map of China and Korea

Riches of the Orient.

This is a c. 1736 Matthäus Seutter map of China and Korea presenting the Chinese empire as a source of wealth, geographical knowledge, and maritime commerce. The composition places China's densely mapped interior beside an allegorical celebration of European engagement with the East.

A Closer Look

The map encompasses China from the northern deserts and Great Wall to Hainan and the Gulf of Tonkin, extending west into Tibet and east across Korea, Taiwan, and western Japan. Contrasting pink, green, and yellow washes distinguish the 15 Chinese provinces, whose interiors contain closely packed settlements, waterways, and pictorial mountain ranges. The Great Wall runs continuously along the northern frontier, separating the densely populated provinces from the more sparsely described regions of Tartary.

The engraved key at upper right distinguishes several ranks of settlements and fortified places. This hierarchy structures the profusion of names: China appears as an extensively settled and administratively organized empire. Korea is unmistakably peninsular, although its proportions and coastline remain generalized. Taiwan appears as a narrow, elongated island labeled Formosa, while the Japanese islands enter at the eastern edge. Two distance scales occupy a smaller ornamental cartouche at lower left.

Seutter's geography follows the tradition of Imperii Sinarum nova descriptio, prepared by Johannes van Loon (c. 1611 - 1686) for Jan Jansson (1588 - 1664), which in turn can trace its sources in the groundbreaking geographical knowledge brought back to Europe by the Jesuit missionary Martino Martini.

The Riches of the Orient

The allegorical title cartouche occupies much of the lower-right quadrant. Its inscription describes China as an opulent empire, a claim developed by the surrounding imagery. A richly dressed female personification of Europe gestures toward a fleet of sailing ships, with valuables and merchandise gathered at her feet. On the opposite side, figures identified as a Chinese official and a Jesuit scholar accompany classical personifications of wisdom, commerce, and the sea. Read together, these groups associate geographical learning with the movement of goods and the wealth of overseas trade.

Publication History and Census

This undated copperplate map was published in Augsburg by Matthäus Seutter (1678 - 1757) for inclusion in his folio atlases, including the Grosser Atlas. The present example is c. 1736, or more specifically from sometime between 1732 and 1740. Its title of Imperial Geographer accords with Seutter's appointment in 1731-32; however, it precedes the addition of the printing-privilege inscription to the plate, granted in 1741. The appointment and privilege were separate honors and should not be conflated when dating Seutter's maps. We see about 19 separate institutional examples of the map without distinguishing all their states.

Cartographer

Matthäus Seutter (1678 - 1757) was one of the most important and prolific German map publishers of the 18th century. Seutter was born the son of a goldsmith but apprenticed as a brewer. Apparently uninspired by the beer business, Seutter abandoned his apprenticeship and moved to Nuremberg where he apprenticed as an engraver under the tutelage of the prominent J. B. Homann. Sometime in the early 1700s Seutter left Homann to return to Augsburg, where he worked for the prominent art publisher Jeremiad Wolff (1663 - 1724), for whom he engraved maps and other prints. Sometime around 1717 he established his own independent cartographic publishing firm in Augsburg. Though he struggled in the early years of his independence, Seutter's engraving skill and commitment to diversified map production eventually attracted a substantial following. Most of Seutter's maps are heavily based upon, if not copies of, earlier work done by the Homann and De L'Isle firms. Nonetheless, by 1731/32 Seutter was one of the most prolific publishers of his time and was honored by the German Emperor Karl VI who gave him the title of Imperial Geographer, after which most subsequent maps included the Avec Privilege designation. Seutter continued to publish until his death, at the height of his career, in 1757. Seutter had two engraver sons, Georg Matthäus Seutter (1710 - 173?) and Albrecht Carl Seutter (1722 - 1762). Georg Matthäus quit the business and relocated to Woehrdt in 1729 (and probably died shortly thereafter), leaving the family inheritance to his wastrel brother Albrecht Carl Seutter, who did little to advance the firm until in own death in 1762. Following Albrecht's death, the firm was divided between the established Johann Michael Probst (1727 - 1776) firm and the emerging firm of Tobias Conrad Lotter. Lotter, Matthäus Seutter's son-in-law, was a master engraver and worked tirelessly on behalf of the Suetter firm. It is Lotter, who would eventually become one of the most prominent cartographers of his day, and his descendants, who are generally regarded as the true successors to Matthäus Seutter. (Ritter, M. Seutter, Probst and Lotter: An Eighteenth-Century Map Publishing House in Germany., "Imago Mundi", Vol. 53, (2001), pp. 130-135.)   Further Details...

Source

Seutter, M., Grosser Atlas, (Augsburg) c. 1730.    

Condition

Very good. Small marginal mend not impacting image. Original color, refreshed.

References

OCLC 159823404.