1786 Pàges Map and Chart of Bombay / Mumbai, India

Unusual map of Bombay / Mumbai.

This is the 1786 German edition of Pierre-Marie-François de Pagès' map of the western Indian coast between Bombay (Mumbai) and Surat, newly engraved for the German translation of his Voyages. By combining a coastal chart with a detailed depiction of settlements and cultivated countryside, it situates the British harbor within a predominantly Maratha landscape. A distinctive line identifies Pagès' own route, connecting the geography to the travel narrative it accompanied. This map is significant as one of the earliest non-British maps of Bombay, predating its ascendancy as the center of British power in India.

A Closer Look

Oriented with east at the top and north to the left, the map extends from Surat and its river approaches to Bombay and the islands beyond its harbor. The coastline forms a continuous foreground to a densely worked landscape of fields, groves, villages, and mountains. Contrasting patterns distinguish cultivated parcels from wooded ground, while rows of pictorial hills create an imposing inland horizon. Rather than leaving the hinterland blank, the engraver presents the ports as gateways to a settled, productive countryside.

The lower-right explanation distinguishes fortifications, Maratha villages, pagodas, and open towns. Surat, Daman, Bassein, Salsette, and Bombay provide the principal geographical anchors. Offshore, soundings, an anchorage symbol, stippled shoals, and radiating compass lines supply the vocabulary of a nautical chart. The line identified as Pagès' route curves through the coastal waters and continues inland toward Surat, making this simultaneously a chart of the coast and a record of passage through it. Salsette carries an unusual antiquarian annotation identifying ruins supposedly associated with a monument marking the limits of Alexander the Great's conquests. The feature is represented pictorially and described. Although published after the First Anglo-Maratha War (1775 - 1782), the map retains the earlier designation of Salsette as Maratha territory, thus keeping its content consistent with Pagès' voyages.

A Maratha Coast and a British Harbor

The political geography is unusually explicit. Large inscriptions identify the Marathas of Gujarat and Bassein, while another describes territory taken from the Mughal Empire by the Marathas; Salsette itself is labeled as theirs. These inscriptions place Bombay within a regional political order in which British possession of a valuable harbor did not yet imply control of its surrounding mainland.

This setting became the theater of the First Anglo-Maratha War (1775 - 1782). The Bombay government's intervention in a disputed Maratha succession, disagreements with the Company's authorities in Calcutta, and fears of French involvement helped prolong the conflict. The Treaty of Salbai in 1782 left the British in possession of Salsette, setting the stage for Bombay's explosive subsequent growth.

De Pagès Voyages

Pierre-Marie-François de Pagès was a French naval officer from Toulouse who became a traveler and geographical observer. Stationed in the Caribbean, he left Cap-Haïtien in June 1767 and undertook a largely independent journey around the world, traveling both overland and by sea rather than commanding a dedicated exploration vessel. His goal was ostensibly to travel from Asia to Europe via a supposed Northeast Passage, but circumstances (and practically) kept his journey to tropical latitudes. Leaving Saint-Domingue in 1767, he traveled through Louisiana and Texas into Mexico, then crossed the Pacific from Acapulco to the Philippines. Unable to pursue his intended route through China, he continued through Batavia to western India, then returned toward Europe via Muscat, Basra, Syria, and the Mediterranean. His account brought descriptions of navigation and commerce together with observations on agriculture, religious practices, and everyday life in the countries through which he passed.

Pagès visited both Bombay and Surat during the Indian portion of his journey in 1769. Departing Batavia on August 2 aboard an English vessel bound for Surat, he stopped at Bombay before continuing north, reaching the Surat roadstead on September 7. His observations contrasted Bombay's sheltered harbor with Surat's exposed offshore anchorage, while his description of Surat's castle noted the simultaneous display of British and local flags and the disparity between the nawab's ceremonial standing and British effective authority.

Publication History and Census

The French version of this map appeared as plate 3 in his 1782 Voyages autour du monde, et vers les deux pôles, engraved by Benard. The present map was newly engraved in Nuremberg by Johann Michael Burucker for Herrn de Pagès Reisen um die Welt und nach den beiden Polen zu Lande und zur See, published in 1786 by Johann Georg Fleischer (Frankfurt and Leipzig). It bears the series inscription Zu Pages Reisen and the plate number 3, but no engraver's signature - we know the engraver from other works in the book. Recorded copies of the German source volume, issued with seven engraved maps, are held at the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg and the Hitotsubashi University Library. It is far scarcer than the French edition and has a limited market history.

Cartographer

Johann Michael Burucker (June 17, 1763 - December 4, 1813) was a German copperplate engraver, geographer, and mechanic active in Nuremberg during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Born in Nuremberg, he was the son of Wilhelm Burucker (1728 - 1801), a mechanic, optician, and copperplate engraver, and his wife, Maria. He described himself as a geographer and lettering engraver and appears as an independent copperplate engraver in Nuremberg's municipal occupational registers (Ämterbücher) from 1786 to 1806. His geographical engraving included a map of Denmark dated approximately 1800; he also produced illustrations of mechanical instruments and engraved an astronomical clock after a drawing by his brother Joachim Ernst Burucker (1764 - 1835). On January 30, 1792, he married Margaretha Felicitas Bieling (? - after 1829), daughter of the printer Johann Heinrich Gottfried Bieling (? - c. 1770), at St. Sebald in Nuremberg; they had at least three sons. Alongside his geographical and technical work, Burucker produced hand-colored anamorphic pictures whose distorted subjects resolved into recognizable images when reflected in cylindrical or conical mirrors.  In 1808, he engraved the terrestrial globes of the Berlin cartographer Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann (1754 - 1840) for the cartographer Johann Georg Franz (1775 - 1836). Surviving examples include a conical-mirror picture of a mounted soldier, dated approximately 1800, in Girona's Museum of Cinema, and a signed anamorphic sheet dated approximately 1790 at the University of Innsbruck. Burucker died in Nuremberg on December 4, 1813.   Further Details...

Source

Pagès, Pierre-Marie-François de, Herrn de Pagès Reisen um die Welt und nach den beiden Polen zu Lande und zur See in den Jahren 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1773, 1774 und 1776, (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Fleischer) 1786.    

Condition

Excellent.

References

Rumsey, 11230.004. Related French edition, 1782. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Geogr.it.o.35; VD18 12044075-001. Hitotsubashi University Library, Menger Reisen 635; CiNii Books BA29336335. Bibliothèque nationale de France, FRBNF12204354.