1680 / 1690 Map of Asia after Frederic De Wit

Rare Unrecorded Plate.

This is an unrecorded, likely pirated map based on Frederic De Wit's c. 1680 map of Asia. While cartographically identical to the De Wit, there are enough variations in the engraving to conclude that it was printed from a different plate not referenced elsewhere.

A Closer Look

Coverage embraces from the Eastern Mediterranean in the west to embrace Japan in the east. The Spice Islands appear in detail, including half of New Guinea. Part of northern Australia (Holandia Nova) is sketched in at the lower right.

Japan and Hokkaido (Yedso) are mapped according to the 1643 discoveries of Dutchmen Maerten de Vries and Cornelis Jansz Coen. Vries and Coen were in search of gold and silver islands supposedly previously discovered by a mysterious Spanish or Portuguese navigator, Juan de Gama. They sailed up the east coast of Japan and continued northward into the bay separating Honshū from Hokkaido. They skirted the east coast of this bay before discovering Kunashir, here Staten Land, the most westerly of the Japanese Kuril Islands. They also sighted Iturup, also known as Etorofu, the second Kuril Island. This island they only tenuously explored and named Compagnie, after the VOC, their sponsors. Subsequent maps assigned great size to Compagnie on little more than speculation. These islands were not more properly mapped until the explorations of Vitus Bering.

Korea appears with minimal detail, but correctly indicated as a peninsula rather than the insular depiction common on maps from the late 16th and early 17th century.

Chiamay

The apocryphal Lake Chiamay appears just north of the Bay of Bengal as the source of four important Southeast Asian River systems: the Irrawaddy, the Dharla, the Chao Phraya, and the Brahmaputra. The curious Lake Chiamay (also called Chiam-may or Chian-may), roughly located in the area of Assam but sometimes as far north as Tibet and China, began to appear on maps of this region as early as the 16th century and persisted well into the mid-18th century.

An Unknown Engraving

While adhering cartographically to the c. 1680 De Wit map, the present example contains numerous differences in engraving that distinguish it as a separate plate, possibly from the hand of a different engraver. De Wit's engravers' imprint (which appeared at bottom right of center, under the word 'India') is absent here. The longitude gradations have been rounded up to the nearest ten (for example, where the original numbers are 68, 78, and so on, the present example rounds up to 70, 80, and so on). Between longitude lines, lower-case reference letters in brackets have been included. The present map labels the Equator 'Aequator Siva Linea Aequinoctialis' (sic), where no label appears on the first state. On this map, the place name 'Holandia Nova' has only the single 'l', whereas the 1680 spelling of 'Hollandia' is correct. Most strikingly, the map's title on the cartouche has clearly been printed from a separate plate and exhibits a prominent platemark of its own. This separate plate even appears to have come from yet another copy of the c. 1680 De Wit plate: at its top edge, the remnants of the long tail feathers belonging to the bird engraved atop the plinth can be plainly seen between the words 'Accuratissima totius'. The variations shown - revealing misunderstandings that a cartographer would be less likely to miss than an engraver - suggest to us that this work is a pirated version of the map by a working engraver, rather than an actual De Wit edition.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved by an unknown engraver at some point after 1689. We see no catalog entries for it and no sales records. Richard Betz, in his The Mapping Of Africa, identifies a single map after De Wit's 1680 map of Africa exhibiting similar alterations to the longitude lines as here, albeit without the reference letters evident here.

Cartographer

Frederik de Wit (1629 - 1706) was a Dutch Golden Age cartographer active in the second half of the 17th and the early 18th centuries. De Wit was born of middle class Protestant stock in the western Netherlandish town of Gouda. He relocated to Amsterdam sometime before 1648, where he worked under Willem Blaeu. His first attributed engraved map, a plan of Haarlem for Antonius Sanderus' Flandria Illustrata, was issued around this time. He struck out on his own in 1654. The first chart that De Wit personally both drew and engraved was most likely his 1659 map of Denmark, REGNI DANIÆ Accuratissima delineatio Perfeckte Kaerte van ‘t CONJNCKRYCK DENEMARCKEN. His great wall map of the world and most famous work, Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula appeared one year later. Following the publication of his wall map De Wit quickly rose in prominence as a both cartographer and engraver. He married Maria van der Way in 1661 and through her became a citizen of Amsterdam in 1662. Around this time he also published his first major atlas, a composite production ranging in size from 17 to over 150 maps and charts. Other atlases and individual maps followed. In 1689 De Wit was granted a 15 year Privilege by the Dutch States General. (An early copyright that protected the recipient's rights to print and publish.) He was recognized with the honorific 'Good Citizen' in 1694. De Wit died in 1706 after which his wife Maria continued publishing his maps until about 1710. De Wit's son, Franciscus, had no interest in the map trade, instead choosing to prosper as a stockfish merchant. On her own retirement, Maria sold most De Wit maps and plates at a public auction. Most were acquired by Pieter Mortier and laid the groundwork for the 1721 rise of Covens and Mortier, the largest Dutch cartographic publishing house of the 18th century.   Further Details...

Condition

Good. Mended marginal tears and centerfold split at bottom.

References

Not in OCLC. Compare with OCLC 945554951. Compare with Rumsey 12220.007.