1745 Mannevillette Map of the Gulf of Siam, Cambodia, Vietnam

This is a rare 1745 d'Après de Mannevillette nautical chart or maritime map of the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. It is one of the first specific printed maps of the Gulf of Thailand and Cambodia. This map, and others from the 1745 edition of Mannevillette, were censured by the French Admiralty, and mostly destroyed - making them both exceedingly rare and poorly understood.

A Closer Look

Coverage extends from western Malaya just north of Singapore to the ancient Siamese (Thailand) capital at Ayutthaya, to the Paracel Islands just east of Vietnam, and south to northern Borneo. The map focuses on the Mekong north to 'Ville de Cambodia', roughly modern-day Phenom Penh, and the surrounding seas.

Primary Sources

Cartographically, this map is attributed to the 'Anciennes Cartes', by which Mannevillette is referring most directly to John Thornton's (1641 - 1708) 1701 manuscript map of the same region - which this map follows in terms of scope, scale, and detail. There are multiple updates, a signature feature of Mannevillette's maps, as he not only collected charts, but corrected and revised them from firsthand observations. The original Thornton manuscript is preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (CPL GE SH ARCH-29).

Thornton doubtless copied old Dutch charts compiled after 1635, when they took over the Cambodia trade formerly dominated by Japan. One such V.O.C. manuscript appeared at Christies in 1999, and may well be the source of both Thornton and the present map. There we see, for the first time, the general outline of the coasts, the large island clusters east of Malaya representing the Riau Archipelago, and the primitive mapping of both the Mekong and the Chao Phraya as far as Ayutthaya (Siam) - note this same cartography appears on François Valentijn's (1666 - 1727) map of the Kingdom of Siam. The mapping of the Paracel Islands as a large, squared wedge in the upper right, as well as other details, was added in the Thornton manuscript.

Vestiges of Trade

Thornton's 1701 chart was copied from Dutch V.O.C. manuscript maps prepared in Batavia in the mid to late 17th-century. These jealously guarded charts began to appear after 1635. Before 1635, the Japanese dominated trade with Cambodia and fiercely defended their routes. In 1635, the Sakoku Edict (Sakoku-rei, 鎖国令) came into effect, creating the 'closed country' policy and ending all Japanese foreign trade. The Dutch, operating from Batavia, were quick to fill the trade vacuum. Nonetheless, legacies of the Japanese trade are preserved here. The Mekong, the primary Japanese trade artery with Phenom Penh (Ville de Cambodia), is identified as the R. Japanese. Also noted is the 17th-century Dutch lodge near Phenom Penh, which was long abandoned by this time, and another fort near Bangkok, apparently active.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Denis d'Après de Mannevillette in the scarce 1745 first edition of his maritime atlas, Le Neptune Oriental. Most examples of the 1745 Le Neptune Oriental were destroyed by the French Admiralty, who considered the information contained within too comprehensive, and thus dangerous to French interests. This map was not included in the relatively common 1775 second edition of Mannevillette's atlas, so today is extremely rare. We note just two other examples, both grossly misdated and held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, one in the Collection d'Anville (07110 B). No market history.