1874 Sudo / Admiralty Japanese Manuscript Map of Taiwan

Japanese mansucript version of the 19th century Admiraltly chart of Taiwan. Part of a set.

Part of Sudo Collection. Not sold Separately: Click here for full collection.

The third and smallest of the general maps of Taiwan in the Sudo collection. This map is based upon British Admiralty chartings of the island combined with the 1861 - 1864 work of British biologist and Formosa Counsel Robert Swinhoe (1836 - 1877). It includes some offshore details as well as arrows indicating the direction of currents. A side panel extends the scope of the map to include the Pescadores or Penghu Islands. The sources of this map are primarily identifiable by the inland topography and general structure of the map.

Cartographers

Sudo Katsuzō (湏藤 / 湏藤勝三; c. 1848 - c. 1874) was a Japanese cartographer of Tochigi Prefecture (栃木県 / Tochigi-ken), Japan. Sudo was part of an 1874 mission to Taiwan and subsequently to the mainland of China. As part of this expedition, he produced a series of maps detailing Taiwan and some major cities in Fujian, including Fuzhou and Xiamen. The quality and execution of the maps suggest that he was experienced in both western and Japanese cartographic styles, indicating that he may have had training as a military engineer. Sudo apparently died of an unknown illness shortly after the maps were made, at just 26, so it is not surprising that little is recorded regarding his history. His maps were subsequently collected by his brother and remained in the family until recently.   Further Details...

The British Admiralty Office (1795 - Present), or the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, is the Branch of the English government responsible for commanding the British Navy. In 1795, King George III created the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office, known as the U.K.H.O., to provide high-quality nautical charts for the Royal Navy. Before the Admiralty's founding, surveying and creating nautical charts was primarily a commercial venture, and the cartographer himself often financed the printing of his own material. Even the great navigator Cook is known to have scrambled for funds to publish his own seminal charts - the most important and advanced of the period. The system of privately funded nautical mapping and publishing left vast portions of the world uncharted and many excellent charts unpublished. King George III, responding to significant losses in trade revenue from shipwrecks and delays caused by poor charts, recognized the need for an institutionalized, government-sponsored cartographic agency: the Admiralty. The first head of the Admiralty, a position known as Hydrographer, was the important cartographer Alexander Dalrymple. Dalrymple began by organizing and cataloging available charts before starting the laborious process of updating them and filling in the blanks. The first official Admiralty Chart appeared in 1800 and detailed Quiberon Bay in Brittany. By 1808, Captain Thomas Hurd became Hydrographer. Hurd advocated selling Admiralty charts to the general public and, by the time he retired in 1829, had issued and published about 736 charts. Stewardship then passed to Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. Under Beaufort's administration, the Admiralty truly developed as a "chart-making" rather than a "chart-cataloging" institution. Beaufort held his post from 1829 to 1854. In his 25 years at the Admiralty, Beaufort created nearly 1,500 new charts and sponsored countless surveying and scientific expeditions, including the 1831 to 1836 voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. By 1855, the Admiralty's chart catalog listed some 1,981 charts.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. On thin Japanese paper. Manuscript.