Catalogue edited by Arnie Anonuevo, Daniel Crouch, Iona Fielding, Rose Grossel, Kate Hunter, Ellida Minelli, Mia Rocquemore and Nick Trimming Design by Ivone Chao and Nicky Valsamakis
Photography by Louie Fasciolo and Marco Maschiao
Terms and conditions: The condition of all books has been described. Each item may be assumed to be in good condition, unless otherwise stated. Dimensions are given height by width. All prices are net and do not include postage and packing. Invoices will be rendered in £ sterling. The title of goods does not pass to the purchaser until the invoice is paid in full.
Daniel Crouch Rare Books New York LLC PO Box 329 Larchmont NY 10538-2945, USA
Printed by Park Communications on FSC® certified paper. Park is an EMAS certified company and its Environmental Management System is certified to ISO14001. 100% of the inks used are vegetable oil based, 95% of press chemicals are recycled for further use and, on average 99% of any waste associated with this production will be recycled. This document is printed on Galerie Matt made of material from wellmanaged, FSC®-certified forests and other controlled sources. The pulp used in this product is bleached without the use of chlorine (ECF).
Firsts Hong Kong 2024
World map \ item 1
Celestial map \ item 2
Printed books & atlases \ items 3-11
Maps of China \ items 12-29
Maps of Shanghai \ items 30-40
Maps of Macao & Pearl River \ items 41-43
Maps of Hong Kong \ items 44-55
Maps of Taiwan \ items 56-59
Maps of Asia/SE Asia \ items 60-69
Wine \ items 70-71
VERBIEST, Ferdinand Kunyu quantu 坤與全圖
[A Complete Map of the World].
Publication [Beijing, 1674, but reprinted Seoul, 1860].
Description
Xylograph, printed on 6 sheets, the southern polar landmass embellished with animals, including a unicorn, a lion, a rhinoceros, a crocodile, a giraffe, a beaver and a turkey, the spandrels with eight large lozenges with text descriptions.
Dimensions 1500 by 3000mm (59 by 118 inches).
References Wallis, Helen, ‘Chinese Maps and Globes in The British Library and The Phillipps Collection’, 1988, British Library Occasional Papers 10 - Chinese Studies, London, pp. 8896. Walravens, Hartmut, ‘Father Verbiest’s Chinese World Map (1674)’, in Imago Mundi Vol. 43 (1991), pp. 31-47. Reproduced in ‘Europa und die Kaiser’ (Frankfurt, 1985), at p.109-111. A Canton version c.1860 is reproduced (in error for the original), in ‘Chine Ciel et Terre’ (Gent, 1982), at p.408-409.
£180,000.00
Verbiest’s original is as rare as its forerunner produced by Matteo Ricci at Beijing in 1602 (or its now-lost predecessors).
Kunyu quantu 坤與全圖 (A Map of the Whole World), was first produced in 1674 by the Jesuit Father Ferdinand Verbiest 南懷仁 (16231688). Commissioned by the Second Qing Emperor Kangxi 康熙 (16541722, r. 1661- 1722), it is one of the largest woodblock-printed maps of its type. It consists of two hemispheres, reversing the conventional European positioning so that China and the Pacific are toward the centre, with the prime meridian running through Beijing. Cartouches are depicted surrounding the hemispheres containing information on the size, climate, landforms, customs and history of various parts of the world and details of natural phenomena such as eclipses and earthquakes. Sea creatures cavort in the waves, a six-masted trading vessel sails the Atlantic, and exotic animals populate the southern continent. Columbus’ discovery of America is also discussed. Images of ships, real and imaginary animals, and sea creatures pepper both hemispheres, creating a visually stunning as well as historically important object.
The present 1860 reprint is easily distinguished from the 1674 by the addition of a new imprint in Chinese (accompanied with a chop in this example), and by the fact that the text in the spandrels of the original is within differently-shaped frames. The prototype of this map is probably the world map by Joan Blaeu in 1648, and has been revised on the basis of Chinese maps so that it approaches a sino-centric worldview. The map was published to mark the official return to favour of the Jesuits in China. Beginning with Ricci at the end of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits were really only tolerated in China as scientific advisers and were not allowed to embark on a general mission throughout the country. Nevertheless the influence at the imperial court of Ricci’s successor, Adam Schall von Bell, aroused the jealousy of imperial agents who, on the pretext of the Jesuits supposedly preparing the way for Portuguese occupation, had Schall von Bell and five assistants sentenced to death in 1664. Schall von Bell was reprieved, but his Chinese assistants were executed and all the priests in China were rounded up in Canton with a view to being expelled. It wasn’t until 1667 when the young Emperor Kangxi began to take a hand in the affairs of government and made friends with Schall’s successor, Ferdinand Verbiest, that the measures taken against the Christians were rescinded and the position of the Fathers made secure.
Verbiest arrived in China after the Ming dynasty had fallen to the Manchu-ruled Qing dynasty. Highly skilled in many disciplines, he became a court adviser, working especially closely with Emperor Kangxi. Kangxi was astute in using the service of Jesuit missionaries in ways that furthered his own political power, and he enlisted Verbiest’s aid with astronomical predictions, calendrical studies and ballistics. His Kunyu quantu was one of a series of maps produced by the Jesuits at the Court in Beijing, beginning
with Matteo Ricci’s two woodcut maps of 1584 (single hemisphere) and 1602. Verbiest wrote Kunyu tushuo 坤與圖說 (Illustrated Discussion of the Geography of the World) in the same year to assist with the interpretation of the map.
An example of a synopsis by Verbiest in the cartouche to the left of the title next to the character 圖 examines the qualities of the Aristotelian principle of the element air. Verbiest refers to air in this manner to distinguish it from the traditional Chinese concept of Qi, the breath or life force. He applies reason to support its existence: “If one says that air does not exist because it has no colour or shape, then will one say that all invisible things— the sound of wind, smell, ghosts, and souls of human and other species—do not exist? When the external eyes cannot see, the internal eyes of reason will understand”.
The map represents the geographical and cartographical thoughts of Europeans that have influenced in China in the seventeenth century, and is a good example of the cultural exchange between European and Chinese Cartography, by means of the activities of the Jesuits.
徐朝俊 XU Chaojun 《黄道中西合图》
Chinese-Western maps of the stars relative to the ecliptic.
Publication 1807.
Description
Two-coloured woodcuts in red and black, hand colouring on both charts, mounted on scrolls.
The first Chinese star charts using Arabic numerals
The first Chinese star charts to use Arabic numbers.
One of the most accurate astronomical documents made during early Qing dynasty, the present stars charts record a comprehensive observation of star positions, with additional details from Western astronomy. In particular, this pair of celestial charts was the first to include Arabic numerals to indicate newly added stars.
The current example was made in 1807, and drew on one of the first European-influenced Chinese star charts, the ‘Huangdao zongxing tu’ ‘黄道总星图’ (The ecliptic planispheres) made by Ignaz Kögler (16801746), who was a German Jesuit missionary in Qing China.
Similar to Kögler’s chart, the present charts depict polar stereographic projections from the south and north ecliptic pole, to the ecliptic or huangdao 黃道 (ecliptic) that is hand coloured in yellow with 360 small graticules. Enclosing the ecliptic is a calendrical ring containing twenty-four Chinese solar terms to represent particular astronomical events or natural phenomena. Each solar term comprises three hou 候 (pentad: a unit of five days), which are marked both in Chinese and Arabic numbers of ’一候, 二候’ and ’10, 20’.
However, unique to this pair of star charts are the Arabic numerals that also appear below or to the left of the stars introduced by European Jesuits, in addition to the equivalent Chinese numerals. A legend of the matching Chinese and Arabic numerals is given in the colophon above the southern hemisphere. These numerals are used to indicate the seven xingdeng 星等 (Ptolemaic stellar magnitudes) of the stars. The combination of both Chinese and Arabic numerals best exemplifies ancient Chinese and Western scientific and technological exchanges.
At the end of the colophon are the author’s name Xu Zhaojun 徐 朝俊 and the date of publication, being 1807 during Emperor Jiaqing’s reign. Xu Zhaojun was a famous horologist of Qing dynasty, specialising in natural science and horology; he published an important book about astronomy, geography and scientific instruments. Xu is also the descendent of the renowned Ming scholar official Xu Guangqi (1562 –1633), who was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and assisted their translation of several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of Euclid’s Elements.
GONZALEZ dE MENDOZA, Juan; and Giuseppe ROSACCIO
Il gran regno della China, novamente dalli Reverendi Padri di S. Agostino, S. Francesco, & Gesù, discoperto Si narra dell’isola del Giapon. Con l’arrivo d’essi signori Giaponesi à Goa.
Publication Venice, Brescia and Bologna, G. Rossi, 1589.
Description
Small quarto (210 x 140mm). 8 leaves, titlepage decorated with a woodcut border and the Arms of Philip II on the verso, doublepage woodcut map; modern vellum.
References Cordier 10-11; Palau 105507 note; StreitDindinger IV, 2008.
£27,500.00
The first map to show Korea as a peninsula, the only known example of this issue
The first appearance of Giuseppe Rosaccio’s influential map of China (Cordier), to illustrate the work of Gonzalez de Mendoza, showing Korea as a peninsula.
Juan González de Mendoza (1545-1618) was a Spanish bishop and briefly one of Europe’s leading authorities on China. Although he never in fact visited the East himself, González published a ‘Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China’ - (The History of the most notable things, rites and customs of the Great Kingdom of China) (1585). It was based on the journals of Spanish explorer Miguel de Luarca, who had made a journey to Ming China five years earlier.
Accompanying excerpts from González’s descriptive text is a woodcut map of China by Rosaccio. The Venetian Rosaccio was primarily a physician, serving Grand Duke Cosimo II in Florence from 1607. He was also a prolific author, however, the majority of his forty written works concerning geography and exploration. For the ‘Historia...de la China’ he produced this iconic map that would help shape the European perception of China for several decades, not least through its influence on the work of cartographers such as the de Jodes. It is the first map to show Korea as a peninsula, in contrast to the cartographic myth of the Korean island that persisted for centuries to come.
Although it was soon superseded by the research and experiences of Jesuit missionaries in the early seventeenth century, and despite accusations of plagiarism from the work of Bernardino de Escalante, the ‘Historia...de la China’ was a great publication success, with an Italian translation appearing in 1586 and an English version two years later. The present example is one of these rare Italian editions, published in 1589, in this case by Giovanni Rossi, with another issue published simultaneously, in Bologna and Florence, by Francesco Tosi. Founded in 1633, the de Rossi printing press was the most important and prolific in Rome during the seventeenth century. Just before the death of its founder, Giuseppe de Rossi (1570-1639), it was inherited by his son Giovanni Giacomo (1627-1691).
Rare: apparently the only known example issued by Rossi, with only the Tosi issue recorded in commerce (2011), and in the New York Public Library.
DUDLEY, Robert; and others
Direttorio Marittimo di Don Roberto Dudleo Duca di Northumbria fatto p[er] ordine del Ser[issimo]Gr: Duca di Toscana suo Sig[no]re e diviso in due Tomi et ogni Tomo in due libri co[n] suoi Capitoli.
Publication [Firenze, c1637-1647].
Description Folio (290 by 196mm).
Original working autograph and holograph manuscript, in Italian, illustrated throughout with diagrams, and drawings of instruments, on seventeenth-century Italian paper, with various watermarks including a Sun (similar to Heawood 3893) and a Medici Coat-of-Arms (similar to Heawood 786), extensively revised at the time, some pages edited with pasteovers, others excised; early drab Italian stiff paper wrappers, stabbed and sewn as issued.
Dudley’s original manuscript manual for the use and instruction of the officers of the Tuscan fleet
The only known manuscript example of any part of Robert Dudley’s magnum opus, ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ held in private hands.
An astonishing survival: a working manuscript, seemingly specifically assembled for the eyes and instruction of the officers of the Tuscan Navy, the Knights of St. Stefano, rather than for a public audience. This suggestion is borne out by the wording of the first title for the work that Dudley has crossed out (page 2): ‘Compendio del Direttorio Marittimo: Il pr[im]o Tomo e intilato, Supplemento della Navigare. Nel pr[im]o libro si discorre dell ‘arte, piu Curiosa di Navigare...’.
This was also the theory of Sir John Temple Leader, previous owner, and Dudley scholar: “It seems probable that the Arcano del Mare was only a resume of several previous works by Dudley. One of them is the MS. volume, quarto size, of which I possess the original, mostly in Dudley’s own hand. It is called the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’, and was written in very faulty Italian for the use and instruction of the officers of the Tuscan fleet. In it most of the subjects enlarged upon in the Arcano, are treated concisely, including great circle sailing and all kinds of navigation ; the administrative management of a fleet, and its manoeuvres in a naval battle, etc. The book is in ancient covers of thick paper, and preceded by a dedication to the Grand-Duke, and by a sketch of Dudley’s own naval life, written in his own hand with all his corrections and underlinings” (Leader, page 19).
Leader acquired the ‘Direttorio’ from Florentine librarian, collector, and bookseller, Pietro Bigazzi, from who he also acquired Gian Carlo de’ Medici’s (1611-1663), first edition of ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’, and a second edition, too. Leader writes about all three works, and the story of their acquisition, in his ‘Life of Sir Robert Dudley’ (1895).
The texts of the ‘Direttorio’ have clearly been written by Dudley, over time, but from at least as early as 1643-1644, and are further annotated by him up until 1647 (he died in 1649), and then further annotated by others, up until the publication of the second edition the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ (1661). They include: Dudley’s autobiography, in which he sets out his credentials as an expert in all things maritime - exploration, navigation, naval warfare, and architecture; several drafts and a completed version of a theological preface, or ‘Proemio’, which was eventually published in the second edition of the ‘Dell’arcarno del mare (1661); 28 chapters of material related to the text of the first edition of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ (1646-1647); theoretical navigational material not published in either edition of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’.
Collation
282 pages, foliated in pencil; pages [i-iv] biobibliography by Domenico Maria Manni; 1: title-page; 2: additional draft title-page, and dedication; p3-14: prospectus of contents (cancelled), followed by autobiographical ‘Proemio’; p15-139: ‘Direttorio Marittimo’, revised texts of 28 chapters of ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, incorporating theological ‘Proemio’, pp39-40; p140-146 addenda.
Condition
A few leaves missing between folios 86 and 87 (chapter xix and the beginning of xx), some lower margins trimmed, occasionally crossing the text.
Literature
Dudley, ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’, 1646-1647; Dudley, ‘Dell’arcano del mare’,1661; Gould Lee, ‘The Son of Leicester, the Story of Sir Robert Dudley’, 1964; Leader, ‘Life of Sir Robert Dudley’, 1895; Targioni-Tozzetti, ‘Notizie degli aggrandimenti delle scienze fisiche accaduti in Toscana nel corso di anni LX. del secolo XVII’, 1780; ‘Manoscritti e alcuni libri a stampa singolari esposti e annotati da Pietro Bigazzi’, 1869.
$630,000
Contents
Pages [i-iv]: Later Bio-bibliography
Written by Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788) director of the Bibilioteca Strozzi, polymath, editor and publisher, also a member of Academia dell Crusca. He owned the ‘Direttorio’, according to Giovanni Targioni -Tozzetti (1712-1783), see ‘Notizie degli aggrandimenti delle scienze fisciche: accaduti in Toscana nel corso dianni LX del scolo XVII Florence’, 1780, volume I., page 80. These notes include mention of the manuscript design by Dudley of the Mole at Livorno in the time of Cosimo II (1590-1620) which was then in the Magliabechiana library. Manni also notes two imperial folio volumes, in the Palatina di Pitti library, of “Marine Treatises”, i.e. Dudley’s manuscript Treatise on marine architecture, began before 1610, in English and continued in Italian, by Dudley, until about 1635 (see Maria Enrica Vadala, ‘Il Trattato dell’architettura maritima di Roberto Dudley, storia e dispersione di un manoscritto’, Studi secenteschi, vol. 61 (2020), pages 193-237).
Manni writes: “Leaving aside many superfine circumstances which have given the Author the opportunity of attending to the theory and practice of the art of navigation, it will suffice to say that as a young man he had a natural sympathy for the sea, so that although he had a very pleasant charge on land in 1588 under his father, then Generalissimo, he nevertheless wanted to exercise the maritime militia, on which the greatness and reputation of the Kingdom of England then depended. Desirous still of discovering new countries (which pert made to manufacture and arm vessels of war), Author confided much in the great knowledge and experience of the famous seafarer and learned mathematician Abram Kendal of England, his master. Hence it followed that in 1594 he began his voyage to West India to discover and open the passage of the Guyana or Walliana Empire in America, and at that time he was much nominated as a great and rich nation; as he did with good success being General by sea and land with his vessels and people etc.”
Pages 1-2: Title-pages and Dedication
Dudley opens his ‘Dorettorio’ with a heart-felt dedication, officially to Grand Duke Ferdinand II, as was proper, and as he did ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. However, in this instance, he goes to great pains to go above and beyond that dedication to extend his tribute to the “Generalissimo del Mare”, i.e. Gian Carlo de’ Medici (1611-1663), Cardinal from 1644, “High Admiral of the Tuscan Navy”, “General of the Mediterranean Sea”, and “General of the Spanish Seas”. Gian Carlo was the second son of Cosimo II de’Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Maria Maddelena of Austria, and the recipient of a superb example of ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, with which the current manuscript was previously housed.
Humbly, Dudley hopes that “in [the ‘Direttorio] one can find something not useless for the common good of Navigation for your Highness and for Prince Giovanni Carlo Medici”. And thanks the Medici family for their support during the “past 37 years that he has been in voluntary exile … and under their protection”, dating the dedication to 1643-44.
Dudley then notes that he took the trouble to finish the ‘Direttorio’ in the best way that his experience in 50 years of maritime affairs (i.e. since 1594) has been able to produce and plan, but if he has erred in anything he hopes he will be excused.
Pages 3-14: ‘Supplem[en]to della Navigaz[io]ne perfetta Tomo primo libro I :proemio’.
Dudley writes of his many maritime achievements in exploration, warfare, and naval architecture, clearly intending to give authority to the following texts: " Setting aside many superfluous circumstances which have occasioned the author to turn his attention to the theory and practice of the art of navigation, suffice it to say that he is Nephew of three Grand Admirals of England (or Generalissimi of the Sea, which is one of the highest offices held under that of the Crown) and that he had from his youth a natural sympathy for the sea, and this in spite of his having in 1588 held the very honorable post of Colonel in the land forces, which he exercised under the command of his father, the General in Chief and Grand Master of England…" As Tyacke reports: this ‘proemio’ or autobiographical preface is not printed in the first edition of the ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’; nor is it the “theological proemio” which is printed in the second edition of 1661; but rather an account of Dudley’s career before he arrived in Florence. It is clearly designed to establish his credentials and to add great authority to the ‘Direttorio’. The text describes how Dudley had learnt the art of navigation and maritime discipline at about the age of 17, had experience of battle under his father the Earl of Leicester, and of navigation, and of designing warships and of participating in sea battles. There is a version of the text he wrote for Richard Hakluyt’s ‘Voyages…’ (1600) (volume III page 574) about his voyage to Trinidad and to the Orinoco, and Guiana in 1594 (see George F. Warner, ‘The voyage of Sir Robert Dudley …to the West Indies’, (15941595), Hakluyt Society, 1899).
In this autobiographical preface Dudley writes: “Si contento, non di meno, che consumasse il capricio e la spesa dall India Occidentale, p[er] scoprire et aprire il passo dell Imperio di Guiana o Walliana in America molto nominato in quel tempo pazione grande e vicca si come fece essendo Generale per mare... si fece padrone dell Isola della Trinita scopri la Guiana” – “He was happy, nevertheless… to discover the West Indies and open the way to the Empire of Guiana or Walliana in America, much known at that time as a great and wealthy country, and to be the General for the sea voyage … he made himself master of Trinita Island [Trinidad]; He discovered Guiana”. Dudley always claimed
that he got to the river Orinoco in Guiana, in 1594 before Sir Walter Ralegh. Dudley then writes about the famous learned mariner and mathematician Abraham Kendal who was his ship’s master on his voyage to Trinidad, and then records how he had sent Captain Wood on a voyage to China (which in the event was unsuccessful). He records his own participation in the raid on Cadiz to destroy the Spanish fleet being assembled in 1596; he says in this and other voyages he practised navigation and the maritime and military disciplines, using great circle sailing and longitude: ‘di gra circoli e della longitude’, adding the words “come Arcano” – “as in the Arcano”, presumably a bit later.
He says that mariners have not well understood, nor practiced, navigation, according to great circles, and the other “spiral and horizontal methods”, with practical longitude.
It is his intention to explain how to do this, and a later insertion, by Dudley, in the margin, says that the first book teaches the method of using the hydrographical and general charts of the Author.
Page 14 ‘Proemio’
This is a theological preface to the ‘Direttorio’, and Dudley assures the censors that these potentially troublesome mathematical matters were in fact created by God himself along with natural and supernatural elements. Dudley formulates his argument for scientific knowledge, of which there are three types: the natural, supernatural, and the efficacy of the scientific (i.e. geometry and mathematics, see page 39) “le cose mathematiche sono certe, sicure et infallibili p[er] dimonstrazione e pero sono pui excellenti delle cose naturali...ma sono inferiori, delle cose supernaturali et immutabili”. An earlier version, on page 15, has crossed out “intelletto humana non arriua” – “Mathematical things are as certain and infallible by demonstration and therefore they are superior to the natural senses …but they are inferior to the supernatural things to which the human intellect cannot reach”.
There are no fewer than four early versions of the theological ‘Proemo’ in the ‘Direttorio’, two of which are incomplete revisions of difficult passages. However, the “theological proemio” which appears on pages 39-40 of the ‘Direttorio’ is published in the second edition of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ (1661), but not, apparently, in the first edition. Either it, or something similar must have been available to Lucini or Bagononi, the publishers of the second edition of 1661.
Pages 14-139 text from ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’ (1646-1647)
This section of the ‘Direttorio’ is composed of early versions of important passages in Books One, Two and Five of ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’: a compendious study of naval theory and practice, treating of longitude and latitude and Great Circle sailing. They appear as drafts and revisions of twenty-eight chapters (lacking part of Chapters 19 and 20); but the order and headings of the chapters does not correspond with that of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’.
The subjects in this part of the ‘Direttorio’ cover many of those in the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’: how to navigate along known and unknown coasts; knowing which winds prevail; currents and the times of tides of places; how to use ‘Tables of Ephemerides’ for celestial observation; how to ascertain magnetic declination values with a meridian compass across the globe. In the field of cartography, Dudley considers how to determine latitudes and longitudes across the oceans, and explains the errors of “horizontal” or common charts in navigation. He proposes the use of mathematical instruments, as well as celestial observation, to accomplish correct navigation.
Interestingly, he also proposes to establish longitude by the use of a clock “oriuolo mecuriale”. As in the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, Dudley focusses on his preferred method of navigating by Longitude and Great Circle sailing - using his own invention of tables of “traversali sfericali”, and his charts based on what we now call “Mercator’s projection”, giving his latitudinal values.
Here the ‘Direttorio’ is heavily re-worked with some passages entirely re-written by the author in the margins, and in places makes direct reference to the text of the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. This suggests that some parts of the ‘Direttorio’ may well have been written during, or after, the text for the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, was being printed. On page 3 of Dudley’s autobiographical ‘proemio’, Dudley adds “come Arcano” –“like the Arcano”; on page 122, a reference to the “master of the Arcana, who holds the secret of longitude” is mentioned; further on pages 21- 22 when in discussing the method of using the “spiral” charts (Cap 8 and 9), Dudley refers to the “carte hydrografice del 2[do] libro” – “hydrographic charts in Book 2”, which is exactly where they appear in the published ‘Dell’arcano del mare”.
These chapters of the ‘Direttorio’ are illustrated with numerous small drawings, and a number of larger diagrams, but the numbering of the figures, while referencing specific charts, do not correspond to the engraved figures in the published ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. It is possible that the references may correspond to the set of 268 manuscript charts now preserved in the BSB, in three volumes (Cod icon 138-140). Similarly, these chapters also contain text not found in the published ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. Dudley describes the likely effects of bad weather in high latitudes above 66°N, and the usual weather in temperate and tropical latitudes (pages 133-134); and ‘Cap XXIV’ contains Dudley’s explanation of how to find the North Star with a diagram (page115).
Pages p140-146 Addenda
Apparently new text, in which Dudley formulates his ideas on the application of science to navigation on the high seas: “la 2 da parte di q[ues] to libro tratta de naviagare con scienza in alto mare Cap 6”; incomplete sections on astronomical and military subjects; and a few additional notes in other hands.
Dudley and the Medicis
Robert Dudley (1573-1649) first published his ‘Secrets of the Sea’ in 1646 when he was 73. It was the culmination of his life’s work, and a testament to his close bond with one of the greatest ruling families of Italy, it is dedicated to Ferdinand II de’Medici. For his services to three Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany (Ferdinand I, Cosimo II, and Ferdinand II), as philosopher, statesman, civil and military engineer, naval architect, hydrographer and geographer, mathematician and physician, Dudley was rewarded with status during his lifetime, a public funeral and a memorial monument upon his death.
Dudley was the son of the Earl of Leicester (the one time favourite of Elizabeth I) and Lady Douglas Sheffield, the widow of Lord Sheffield. Although born out of wedlock, Robert received the education and privileges of a Tudor nobleman. He seems to have been interested in naval matters from an early age, and in 1594, at the age of 21, he led an expedition to the Orinoco River and Guiana. He would later, like all good Tudor seamen, sack Cadiz, an achievement for which he was knighted.
His success upon the high-seas was not matched, unfortunately, by his luck at court, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century he was forced to flee, along with his cousin Elizabeth Southwell, to Europe. Eventually, in 1606, he ended up in Leghorn, Italy, which he set about turning into a great international naval and commercial seaport, in the service of Ferdinand I.
Dudley, successful at last, married his cousin, converted to Catholicism, helped Ferdinand wage war against the Mediterranean pirates, by designing and building a new fleet of fighting ships for the Italian navy, served as Grand Chamberlain to three Grand-Duchesses of Tuscany in succession: Maria Maddelena, widow of Cosimo II; then Christina of Lorraine, widow of Ferdinand I; then to Vittoria della Rovere, Princess of Urbino, and wife of Ferdinand II, who created Dudley Duke of Northumberland.
Gian Carlo de’ Medici (1611-1663).
It is not surprising that Dudley should dedicate his ‘Direttorio’ to his greatest patrons, Grand Duke Ferdinand II, and Gian Carlo de’ Medici. Nor that they should have owned examples of his greatest work, ‘Dell’arcano del mare’. What is very pleasing is that this working manuscript for the ‘Direttorio’, should also once have been in the possession of at least two other previous owners of both Gian Carlo’s first edition ‘Dell’arcano del mare’: Pietro Bigazzi, Florentine bookseller; and Sir John Temple Leader.
Gian Carlo de’Medici shared Dudley’s passion for all things maritime. The second son of Cosimo II de’Medici, Gian Carlo was made “High Admiral of the Tuscan Navy” in 1638, held the title of “General of the Mediterranean Sea”, and appointed “General of the Spanish Seas” by Philip IV of Spain during the 40 years war. In 1644, he reluctantly resigned his naval appointments when Pope Innocent X appointed him Cardinal. As a young and attractive man, he found the religious life a trial, and in 1655, the Pope returned him to Florence, after he became a bit too friendly with Queen Christina of Sweden. There he remained until his death, working in close collaboration with his brothers, in the government and cultural enrichment of the grand duchy. Gian Carlo was “passionate about science, letters and above all music. Founded the Accademia degli Immobili and contributed to the construction of the Teatro della Pergola, inaugurated in 1658.... and enrichment of the Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti” (Cardella, Lorenzo. ‘Memorie storiche de cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa’. Rome, Stamperia Pagliarini, 1793, VII, 51).
The close bond between Dudley and Gian Carlo is attested to by a letter written in September of 1638 from Dudley to Gian Carlo, who had just been appointed High Admiral of the Tuscan Navy, offering his homage and swearing his fealty, saying, that “if his nautical experience of many years merited employment in the service of his Highness, he, though old, would be always ready to obey the Admiral’s commands” (John Temple Leader in his ‘Life of Sir Robert Dudley,...’ 1895, pages 115-116).
Domenico Maria Manni, Pietro Bigazzi, and the Biblioteca Moreniana (Moreniana Library).
A Florentine bookdealer and collector, Pietro Bigazzi was also a librarian, and clerk of the Academia della Crusca, from 1854. His large library had come from a number of sources, including that of Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788) director of the Bibilioteca Strozzi, who has supplied the four pages of bio-bibliography at the beginning of the ‘Direttorio’. See ‘Manoscritti e alcuni libri a stampa singolari esposti e annotati da Pietro Bigazzi’, Firenze, Tipografia Barbera, 1869, in which it is noted: “manuscript ceded, many years ago, to Mr. Temple Leader, a distinguished English gentleman, domiciled among us; solicitous repairer of the Tuscan Memoirs”.
The Biblioteca Moreniana “was created when the Provincial Deputation of Florence acquired the bibliographic collection that had belonged to Pietro Bigazzi.
The collection of literary writings, the majority of which were part of the library owned by Domenico Maria Manni and Domenico Moreni, consists mostly of records on Tuscan history and culture. Later, several other literary collections from well-known scholars and collectors of Tuscan antiquities were added. In 1942, the library was housed in Palazzo Medici Riccardi and opened to the public. Other historically significant collections of manuscripts were added later. Today the library is managed by the Metropolitan City of Florence” (Biblioteca Moreniana, online).
John Temple Leader (1879-1903)
Possessed both the first and second editions of Dudley’s ‘Dell’Arcano dell mare’, and this manuscript, the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’. He describes his relationship with Pietro Bigazzi, the Florentine bookdealer from whom he purchased all three items, in his biography of Dudley: “Long ago I bought from Signor Pietro Bigazzi, together with many other books which had belonged to Dudley, the first two volumes and the fourth of the ‘Arcano del Mare’, the first edition of his great work which was published at Florence in 1646-47. The third volume was wanting, perhaps lent to some friend who had forgotten to return it. Two or more years after this, Signor Bigazzi brought me, as a New Year’s gift, the missing volume of this very same incomplete set. He had discovered it on the low wall or ledge of the Palazzo Riccardi, and bought it from the salesman who had permission to sell his books there. My joy on thus unexpectedly receiving the missing part may be easily imagined by collectors and lovers of old books. The four volumes thus happily reunited after a long separation were in the old binding with the arms of a Cardinal of the Medici family” (pages 18-19).
Other Dudley manuscripts related to ‘Dell’arcano del mare’ Manni noted that the Palatina di Pitti library held two imperial folio volumes, in manuscript, of “Marine Treatises” by Dudley. They were on marine architecture, begun before 1610 in English, and continued by Dudley in Italian until about1635 (see Maria Enrica Vadala: ‘Il Trattato dell’architettura maritima di Roberto Dudley, storia e dispersione di un manoscritto’, Studi secenteschi, vol. 61 (2020), pp. 193-237) The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek holds several manuscripts by Dudley related to the ‘Dell’arcano del mare’, including: a of 268 manuscript charts, in three volumes, (Cod icon 138-140); and another relating to naval architecture and the conduct of naval warfare (Cod.icon 221) British Library (Add MS 22811).
Provenance
1. Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788), polymath, editor and publisher, also a member of Academia dell Crusca, and Director of the Biblioteca Strozzi, who has supplied 4 pages of bio-bibliography at the front of the manuscript; 2. Pietro Bigazzi, Florentine collector, librarian, and bookseller, a number of annotations in pencil, including on the flyleaf (“Ms citato del Targioni negli aggrandimenti Vole 10 pag.80”), sold to:
3. Sir John Temple Leader (1879-1903), who also bought Gian Carlo de’ Medici’s (1611-1663), first edition of ‘Dell’Arcano del mare’, and a second edition, from Bigazzi;
4. By descent to Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury (1903-1917), who sold Leader’s collections “piecemeal”
BLAEU, Jean
Novus Atlas Sinensis A Martino Martinio Soc. Iesu Descriptus Et Serenessimo Archidvci Leopoldo Gvilielmo Avstriaco Dedicatvs. Cum privilegio S.C. Maj. et Ordd. Foed. Belg.
Publication
Amsterdam, Joannes Blaeu, 1655.
Description Folio (520 by 350mm (20.5 by 13.75 inches)). French text. *-**2, A-i2, engraved hand-coloured and gold illuminated frontispiece showing putti around a globe and a map of China, with the title printed on an open door, dedication, 17 double-page maps, 16 of China and one of Japan, some browning throughout, vellum gilt with yapp fore-edges, waterstain to upper cover.
References Cams, ‘Displacing China: The MartiniBlaeu Novus Atlas Sinensis and the Late Renaissance Shift in Representations of East Asia’ , in ‘’The Renaissance Quarterly’, Volume LXXIII, no.3, 2020; Van der Krogt 2:511.
£35,000.00
First atlas of China made in Europe
The first Western atlas devoted to China. The atlas was based on the travels of Father Martino Martini (1614-1661), a Jesuit missionary in China who made use of “Chinese materials from a much earlier date, originally an atlas compiled by Chu-Ssu-pên in about 1312” (Shirley p. 241). Ferdinand von Richthofen in his ‘China; Ergebnisse eigner Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien’, (1877-85), called Martini’s ‘Novus….’ Atlas Sinensis “the most complete geographical description of China that we possess, and through which Martini has become the father of geographical learning on China.”
“Martino Martini’s ‘Novus…’ Atlas Sinensis’ was the first atlas and geography of China to be published in Europe. In 1654, Martini’s ship was captured by the Dutch and he was sent to Amsterdam. During the journey, he translated into Latin the manuscript atlas of the Chinese provinces by Chu-Ssu-pên, with revisions from the printed atlas by Lo Hongxian (1555). Though Blaeu had announced that he was preparing town books of Italy, a volume of charts and a volume of historical maps in his previous publication, the 1654 atlas of Scotland, Martini persuaded him to engrave and publish his maps and descriptions of the Chinese empire. Blaeu postponed his work on the other volumes and published this atlas in 1655. The text was Martini’s own account of his travels in the Chinese provinces, over a period of roughly ten years.
The seventeen maps are noteworthy for their accuracy, remarkable for the time, but also for their highly decorative cartouches featuring vignettes depicting regional dress, activities and animals Martini’s ‘Nouvus… Atlas Sinensis’ marked the beginning of a flood of illustrated works and translations of Chinese texts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many of which cite Martini’s atlas as a source. In addition, it is one of the first true SinoEuropean publications, based on Chinese land surveys, but presenting geographic data in a highly visual European cartographic format (Reed and Demattè, ‘China on Paper’, No. 28). At the end of the volume is a ‘Catalogus Longitudinum ac Latitudinem’, plus a list of towns with the geographical coordinates, an 18 page ‘De Regno Catayo Additamentum’ (An Addition on the Chinese Reign) by Jacobus Golius, and the ‘Historie van den Tartarischen Oorlog’ (De Bello Tartarico Historia) by Father Martino Martini, describing the horrors of the war culminating in the overthrow of the ancient Ming dynasty emperors by the new ruling Manchus. Blaeu has always been celebrated primarily for his extremely high production standards. The quality of the engraving, the paper, and the colouring are of the highest order, and place Blaeu Atlases in the first rank among seventeenth century illustrated books. The volume was published as a separate volume by Blaeu in 1655, however, the maps were also included in volume VI of Blaeu’s ‘Nieuwe’ Atlas (1649-58) in Dutch.
The atlas was printed in Latin, French, Dutch, German and Spanish.
BLAEU, Jean
Novus Atlas Sinensis Seste Deel van de Nieuwe Atlas oft Tooneel des Aerdrijcx Uytgegeven door Joan Blaeu.
Publication Amsterdam, Joannes and Willem Blaeu, [1655].
Description
Folio (535 by 345mm), Dutch language edition, engraved frontispiece with letterpress title, heightened in gold, dedication and privilege, 17 double-page engraved maps, fine original hand-colour in outline, a few text leaves browned, some minor worming to the first 10 leaves, original publisher’s vellum, panelled with gilt foliate roll, central and corner arabesques, spine in eight compartments, with central rose tool, yap fore-edges, with remains of original ties.
References Cams, ‘Displacing China: The MartiniBlaeu Novus Atlas Sinensis and the Late Renaissance Shift in Representations of East Asia’ , in ‘’The Renaissance Quarterly’, Volume LXXIII, no.3, 2020.
£35,000.00
First atlas of China made in Europe
The first Western atlas devoted to China. The atlas was based on the travels of Father Martino Martini (1614-1661), a Jesuit missionary in China who made use of “Chinese materials from a much earlier date, originally an atlas compiled by Chu-Ssu-pên in about 1312” (Shirley p. 241). Ferdinand von Richthofen in his ‘China…’; Ergebnisse eigner Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien, (1877-85), called Martini’s ‘Novus Atlas Sinensis’ “the most complete geographical description of China that we possess, and through which Martini has become the father of geographical learning on China”.
“Martino Martini’s Novus Atlas Sinensis was the first atlas and geography of China to be published in Europe. In 1654, Martini’s ship was captured by the Dutch and he was sent to Amsterdam. During the journey, he translated into Latin the manuscript atlas of the Chinese provinces by Chu-Ssu-pên, with revisions from the printed atlas by Lo Hongxian (1555). Though Blaeu had announced that he was preparing town books of Italy, a volume of charts and a volume of historical maps in his previous publication, the 1654 atlas of Scotland, Martini persuaded him to engrave and publish his maps and descriptions of the Chinese empire. Blaeu postponed his work on the other volumes and published this atlas in 1655. The text was Martini’s own account of his travels in the Chinese provinces, over a period of roughly ten years.
The seventeen maps are noteworthy for their accuracy, remarkable for the time, but also for their highly decorative cartouches featuring vignettes depicting regional dress, activities and animals Martini’s ‘Novus Atlas Sinensis’ marked the beginning of a flood of illustrated works and translations on China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many of which cite Martini’s atlas as a source. In addition, it is one of the first true Sino-European publications, based on Chinese land surveys, but presenting geographic data in a highly visual European cartographic format” (Reed and Demattè, ‘China on Paper’, No. 28). At the end of the volume is a ‘Catalogus Longitudinum ac Latitudinem’, plus a list of towns with the geographical coordinates, an 18 page ‘De Regno Catayo Additamentum’ (An Addition on the Chinese Reign) by Jacobus Golius, and the ‘Historie van den Tartarischen Oorlog’ (De Bello Tartarico Historia) by Father Martino Martini, describing the horrors of the war culminating in the overthrow of the ancient Ming dynasty emperors by the new ruling Manchus. Blaeu has always been celebrated primarily for his extremely high production standards. The quality of the engraving, the paper, and the colouring are of the highest order, and place Blaeu Atlases in the first rank among seventeenth century illustrated books. The volume was published as a separate volume by Blaeu in 1655, however, the maps were also included in volume VI of Blaeu’s ‘Nieuwe Atlas’ 164958 in Dutch. as here.
The first atlas on Mercator’s Projection
DUDLEY, Robert
Dell’arcano del Mare di D. Ruberto
Dudleo Duca di Northumbria, e Conte di Warwich …
Publication
Florence, Giuseppe Cocchini, 1661.
Description
Six parts in two volumes, folio (550 by 425mm), two printed titles with engraved vignettes, traces of removed library stamps, double-page plate of the author’s patent of nobility, 216 engraved plates (of which 66 have volvelles or moveable parts), 146 engraved charts (of which 88 are double-page); contemporary calf, panelled, foliate roll-tool border, foliate corner and central tool, spine in seven compartments separated by raised bands.
The ‘Arcano de Mare’ is one the “greatest atlases of the world” (Wardington). This sumptuous atlas, first published in 1646 when its author, Robert Dudley, was 73, was not only the first sea atlas of the world, but also the first to use Mercator’s projection; the earliest to show magnetic deviation; the first to show currents and prevailing winds; the first to expound the advantages of ‘Great Circle Sailing’ – the shortest distance between two points on a globe; and “perhaps less importantly the first sea-atlas to be compiled by an Englishman, all be it abroad in Italy” (Wardington).
Robert Dudley (1573–1649) was the son of the Earl of Leicester (the one time favourite of Elizabeth I) and Lady Douglas Sheffield, the widow of Lord Sheffield. Although born out of wedlock, Robert received the education and privileges of a Tudor nobleman. He seems to have been interested in naval matters from an early age, and in 1594, at the age of 21, he led an expedition to the Orinoco River and Guiana. He would later, like all good Tudor seamen, sack Cadiz, an achievement for which he was knighted.
His success upon the high-seas was not matched, unfortunately, by his luck at court, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century he was forced to flee, along with his cousin Elizabeth Southwell, to Europe. Eventually he ended up in Florence at the court of Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany, where he not only married his cousin and converted to Catholicism, but also help Ferdinand wage war against the Mediterranean pirates. In his spare time he set about his great life’s work: the ‘Arcano del Mare’.
The atlas is divided into six books, or sections: book one deals with longitude; book two covers errors in the then-existing sea charts, and includes the portolano for the Mediterranean and 15 general maps; book three deals with naval and military discipline, notably the former, and there is a long section on naval tactics, especially remarkable for a plan of the construction of a navy in five grades of vessel; book four describes the method of designing and building ships of the “Galerato” and “Galizaba” types and is concerned with naval architecture, giving the lines and dimensions of ships; book five is devoted entirely to navigation and methods of measuring the sun’s declination and the relative positions of the stars; book six contains the sea atlas.
For the beautifully engraved charts, Dudley employed the services of Antonio Francesco Lucini. Lucini states in the atlases that the work took him 12 years to complete and required 5,000lbs of copper. The charts are by English and other pilots, and it is generally accepted that the work was both scientific and accurate for the time. It is assumed that Dudley used the original charts of Henry Hudson, and for the Pacific Coast of America used his brother in-law Thomas Cavendish’s observations.
Contents
Book 1. [4], 30pp., printed title with plate of a navigational instrument, [2] engraved facsimile of the Patent, 30 engravings on 28 sheets, 22 of which have moveable volvelles (of these, 2 have a string).
Book 2. 24pp., 15 engravings on nine sheets, 9 of which have volvelles, and 15 large engraved charts (six double-page or folding), of which four relate to America, five to the European coasts, four to Asia, and two to Africa.
Book 3. 25pp., 8 engraved plates on 6 sheets (three plates being of ships in battle formation, etc.) including four sheets with plates of fortifications and cities with walled defences.
Book 4. 12pp., 18 engravings on 14 sheets, of which seven are double page, all designs of ships in plan and in section.
Book 5. 26, [2]pp., 145 engravings on 89 sheets, 38 have moveable volvelles and additional 5 have a string.
Volume II
Book 6. [4], 41pp., title with plate of the Great Bear, 131 engraved charts (82 double-page), 58 covering Europe, Greenland, and Canada, 17 of Africa, 23 of Asia, and 33 of America.
Rarity
Rare. The last example to come on the market sold for £731,000 in Christies London, 2019, and, before that, $824,000 in the Frank Streeter sale, Christies New York, 2007.
Provenance
1. Sir John Temple Leader (1879-1903); first Villa Maiano, and then at the Castello di Vincigliata near Fiesole, which he purchased in 1855 and restored in neo-medieval style, furnishing and richly embellishing it with paintings and furniture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Leader possessed both the first and second editions of Dudley’s ‘Dell’Arcano dell mare’, and Dudley’s manuscript, the ‘Direttorio Marittimo’. He describes his relationship with Pietro Bigazzi, the Florentine bookdealer from whom he purchased all three items, in his biography of Dudley: “Long ago I bought from Signor Pietro Bigazzi, together with many other books which had belonged to Dudley, the first two volumes and the fourth of the ‘Arcano del Mare’, the first edition of his great work which was published at Florence in 1646-47. The third volume was wanting, perhaps lent to some friend who had forgotten to return it. Two or more years after this, Signor Bigazzi brought me, as a New Year’s gift, the missing volume of this very same incomplete set. He had discovered it on the low wall or ledge of the Palazzo Riccardi, and bought it from the salesman who had permission to sell his books there. My joy on thus unexpectedly receiving the missing part may be easily imagined by collectors and lovers of old books. The four volumes thus happily reunited after a long separation were in the old binding with the arms of a Cardinal of the Medici family” (pages 18-19).
2. By descent to Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Baron Westbury (1903-1917), who sold Leader’s collections “piecemeal”.
THEVENOT Melchisédec
Relations de divers voyages curieux, qui n’ont point esté publiées, ou qui on esté traduits d’Hacluyt, de Purchas, et d’autres voyageurs Anglais, Hollandois, Portugais, Allemands, Espagnols, et de quelques Persans, Arabes, et autres auteurs orientaux.
Publication
A Paris, chez André Cramoisy, 1666 - 1672.
Description
4 volumes in 2. Folio (334 by 230mm). Text in French and Greek, title-pages printed in red and black, 3 of the 4 title-pages match those for the fourth part, and are dated 1672 (see Brunet V, 810), with original Roman numerals (1663 and 1664) altered in early manuscript; full vellum over pasteboard, title in manuscript of the spines, some minor restoration.
References Brunet, t. V, col. 810-813; Sabin 95333.
£35,000.00
The most up-to-date practical knowledge on navigation and information on foreign countries
Volume one, part I: pp. [8] 52, 40, 12, 80, 30, 24, 35 [1], 52, XXV [3] with 3 large folding engraved maps, and illustrations throughout; without Routier des Indes orientales, but with Description des Pyramides d’Egypte, and numerous tables related to China; part II: pp. [16] 20, 60, 128, 40, 16, 48, 4, 26 with 10 folding engraved plates including 2 large folding maps, and some folding tables.
Collation
Part I: [4] leaves, 52 pages, with map of Colchide; 1-26; 17-40; 12 pages with map of India under Mogol; 80 pages; 30 pages; 1-10; 19-24; 17-24; 35 pages; [1] page; 56 pages with map of Australia; XXV; [1] with two plates of Egyptian mummies; bound without 2 plates with Caldean characters, and one map of Bassora. Part II: [8] leaves, 20 pages; 60 pages with 4 plates of Arabic coasts; 128 pages with map of Serloine; 40 pages with map of China and Philippines; 16 pages; 48 pages with plate justice en iapon between pages 45 and 46; 4 pages; 26 pages; bound without, 1 map of Arabia, 1 map of Pegu et Japon, and 2 leaves of text (pages 27-30, last part on China).
Volume two, part IV: La science des Chinois with its own title-page; pp. [4] 14, 24, 16, 16, 8, [4] 58, 40, 23 [1], 24, 4 with one folding engraved plate; part III: engraved frontispiece titled Ambassade des Hollandois a la Chine (1666); pp. [8] 68, 216, 12 with 15 engraved plates, including 2 large folding maps, and one folding table.
Part IV: [2] leaves, 14 pages; 24 pages; 16 pages; 16 pages; 8 pages; 4 pages; map of the Red Sea; 46 pages with 63 plates and pages 47-58 of text; 23 pages; 24 pages; 4 pages, 2 plates with animals and plants from China; bound without: frontispiece particulier du voyage du sieur Acarette, ??? 23 of 24 pages of Viaggio del P. Grueber including the plate of the Chinese alphabet, with only the French translation of the account and map of Ethiopia. Part III: 1 leaf; [3] leaves; 28 pages; pages 31-68 with plate of the route (bound between pages 26 and 27 of following work); map of China; 216 pages; 12 pages; 10 plates not called for by Brunet, from the Voyage des ambassadeurs bound at the end; bound without the frontispiece to the part III, 2 leaves of text at the end of the first avis, 2 plates from the Voyage des ambassadeurs.
Thevenot’s monumental collection of voyages and exploration: a continuation of Haklyut and Purchas, and with the addition of accounts of exploration in the southern oceans, the East Indies, China and Arabia. His compilation was issued in five parts over more than thirty years: part I in 1663, part II in 1664, part III in 1666, part IV during 1672-1674, and part V in 1696. During the course of publication, the parts of the collection already printed were reissued with new title-pages in 1664, 1666, 1672 [as here], 1683, and 1696. Some sheets were reprinted for these reissues, and any two examples, issued before 1683, are rarely the same, with some “inserts” being
more scarce than others. The current example is as originally issued, and seems to be composed of sheets for the 1666 re-issue, with new title-pages to parts I, II, and IV. It has been bound without some maps and inserts found in other examples, but is with others not so commonly found (see ‘Collation’).
Of all the truly legendary voyages undertaken in perilously small open boats, Pelsaert’s voyage from the Abrolhos to Bavatia in June and July of 1629 is an extraordinary feat of endurance in extremis. The current set includes the very rare ‘La Terre Avstrale decovverte par le Capitaine Pelsart, qui y fait naufrage’: just seven pages that recount the tragedy of shipwreck, the bloody savagery of mutiny, Pelsaert’s extraordinary journey, and the viscious aftermath of just retribution. The account is illustrated with the large folding map ‘Terre Avstrale decouverte l’an 1644’, after Tasman, here in its third state, with the Tropic of Capricorn and rhumb lines, 1672.
Other important maps include: the second printing of an important untitled map of the East Indies, after Teixeira’s chart which had been prepared in the 1640s for Portuguese cartographers. Drawn in the same style as a portolan, with no inland details, there are two insets showing the Ganges Delta and Chittagong, Hokkaidō is shown as an island north of Japan (”Iezo”); ‘Imperii Sinarum Nova Descriptio, a map of China’, including Korea, Taiwan and Japan, drawn after the work of Martino Martini as published by the Blaeus, but showing Hokkaidō joined to the mainland; and ‘Ioao Teixeira Cosmographo de Sua Magestade Afex em Lixboa O Anno de 1649’, an important chart of the entire east coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, the west coast of India and adjacent Indian Ocean islands, one of the few printed charts taken directly from Portuguese sources, based upon a 1649 portolan chart by João Teixeira, royal cosmographer of Portugal.
One of the great driving forces behind ‘Divers voyages’ was Thévenot’s desire to help France achieve her aim to increase colonial trade to compete with other European nations. The book aimed to gather together the most up-todate practical knowledge on navigation and information on foreign countries.
Melchisedech Thévenot (1620-1692) was a French diplomat, scientist, and travel writer. He was a scholar with interests in mathematics, physics, and medicine, acting as the patron of several early scientific societies and most notably contributing to the formation of the Académie des Sciences. His early career included two missions to Italy in the 1640s and 1650s, and it was there that he first developed an interest in the study of Oriental languages. In 1663, he published the first part of his ‘Relations de Divers Voyages’, a work that would secure his reputation as one of the most important travel compilers of the seventeenth century. He would go on to publish a second and third part in 1666, a fourth in 1672, and a final fifth part was being assembled in 1692 when Thévenot died, and would not be published until 1696.
1. With the Ex libris on two frontispieces of the convent of the Discalced Carmelites in Como (suppressed in 1792).
2. Early manuscript purchase annotation on the verso of the top board of Vol 1 of the Como bookseller Pasquale Ostinelli (1804).
LE GOBIEN, Charles; JeanBaptiste du HALDE; Father Patouillet; and Father Ambrose MARECHAL [eds.,]
Lettres édificantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères, par quelques missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jésus.
Publication Paris, Jean Cusson [and others], 1702-1776.
Description
34 volumes bound in 32. Octavo (160 by 98 mm), engraved title-page vignettes, 36 mostly folding engraved plates and maps (of 38, without portrait of Antoine Verjus, and map of Paraguay, 2 hand-coloured, a few old repairs at folds, some loss to map of ‘Nouvelles Phillipines’ in volume VI, and plate of Chinese inscriptions in volume X), occasional light foxing or browning, volume 1 with title-page shaved at lower margin touching imprint, and final leaf repaired with some loss of text, volume V with small loss to blank corners on 2 leaves, volume XV title-page with small hole touching imprint, volumes I-XXVIII uniform contemporary calf, spines gilt in compartments with two lettering-pieces, all edges red, volumes XXIX - XXXIV (slightly taller) in similar mottled calf, some rubbing and abrasions, minor worm trails to a few sides and joints, a few spine ends chipped, but generally attractive.
References
[Sabin 40697, “a set comprising the first edition of each volume is of uncommon rarity”; Sommervogel III, 1514, IV, 34-35, V, 536, VI, 353-354; cf. Hill 1024, second edition only], 8vo, Paris, Jean Cusson [and others], 1702-1776.
£15,000.00
Rare complete set of “the most valuable 18th-century source on Jesuit activities in frontier regions throughout the world” (Hill, ‘Collection Of Pacific Voyages’)
In addition to the vows of Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience, initiates to the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), made a fourth vow, their foundation principal, to undertake missionary work anywhere in the world, as the Pope directed them; and then promise to write letters home to Rome detailing all that they found. Beginning with St. Francis Xavier’s (1506-1551) first mission, from 1540, to India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, by the end of the sixteenth century, almost nine thousand Jesuits were sending their ‘Lettres edifiantes et curieuese’, from all corners of the known world.
Three of the Jesuits’ most celebrated missions were to: China, led by Matteo Ricci (1552-1610); Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil (1609-1768), which established at least thirty large mission towns, each with a cathedral-sized church, school and workshop; and a relatively brief and bloody residence in Canada (1611-1649). From 1632, the letters of the North American missionaries were published in the ‘Jesuit Relations’.
These ‘Lettres édifiantes et curieuese...’ (1702–1774), were first selected and collected for publication in Paris by Charles Le Gobien. First-hand, realtime accounts, they represent a wealth of historical, scientific, geographical, botanical, cultural, and ethnographic information, which has been mined by thinkers and scholars of all disciplines, and every scientific age, ever since.
Provenance
“Domus probationis Parisiensis Societatis Jesu ad usum novit”, contemporary inscription on the title of volume I, and and similar inscriptions to title-pages of volumes II-XXVIII, placing these volumes formerly in the library of the Parisian Jesuit novitiate.
A fine example of the first edition of Du Halde’s “encyclopedic survey of China”
DU
HALDE, Jean Baptiste
Description Geographique Historique, Chronologique, Politique, et Physique de l’Empire de la Chine.
Publication Paris, P.G. Lemercier, 1735.
Description Four volumes, folio (430 by 280mm), 65 plates and engraved maps, mostly folding or double-page, titles in red and black incorporating engraved pictorial vignette by Baquoy after Humblot; with all half-titles; woodcut head- and tailpieces, typographic ornaments, historiated and decorative initials. Contemporary calf, spines divided in compartments by six raised bands, contrasting red morocco labels in two, others richly gilt with floral tools, leaf sprays, etc., sides ruled in gilt with threeline fillet, marbled endpapers, red edges.
Collation
Volume I: (2) leaves, viij-lij-iv-592 pp. Volume II: (2) leaves, iv-725 pp. Volume III: (2) leaves, iv-564-(2) pp. Volume IV: (2) leaves, ij-520 pp.
References
Augustin de Backer and Carlos Sommervogel, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, (Liège: L. Grandmont-Donders, 1869-1876) IV, 35; Brunet II, 870; Cordier Sinica I, 45-48; John Lust, Western Books on China Published up to 1850 (London: Bamboo, 1987), 12; A.H. Rowbotham, “The Impact of Confucianism on Seventeenth Century Europe”, The Journal of Asian Studies 4 (1945); Seymour Schwarz and Ralph E. Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America (London: Wellfleet Press, 1980).
£40,000.00
A fine example of the first edition of du Halde’s “encyclopedic survey of China” (Lust), and one of the earliest European sources on Chinese ceramics. Du Halde, who became a Jesuit priest in 1708, was entrusted by his superiors to edit the published and manuscript accounts of Jesuit travellers in China. The present work records the narratives of 27 of these missionaries. The narratives cover every aspect of Chinese society, from the language to the production of silk and porcelain. China was highly fashionable in France at the time. The Abbé Raynal, for example, emphasised China’s lack of hereditary nobility, the ‘benevolent despotism’ of the Emperor, and the supposedly moderate taxes, all issues in contemporary France. This interest in China’s political system was offset by an interest in its literature. Parts of Confucius had been translated into Latin in 1669, and Voltaire himself advocated reading Confucius’ works. The publication of Du Halde’s book marked the point at which “French Sinophilism developed into Sinomania” (Rowbotham). Not only did it provide an insight into this remote and exotic land, but it also included 42 maps of the Chinese provinces by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville. These were the most accurate maps of the country to date, based upon a survey carried out by the Chinese state in 1708.
The most notable of the narratives is the ‘Relation succinte du voyage du capitaine Beering dans la Sibérie’, which is the first published account of Vitus Bering’s 1728 voyage through the eponymous strait, the importance of which he failed to recognize after sighting no land. The accompanying doublepage map bound between pp. 452 and 453 is based on Bering’s manuscript map, which was given to the King of Poland and in turn passed to Du Halde to be reproduced here. Bering’s map is “the first printed map of part of present Alaska” (Schwarz and Ehrenberg).
D’ANVILLE, [Jean Baptiste Bourguignon]
Memoire de M. D’Anville, Premier Geographe du Roi, Des Academies Royales des Belles-Lettres, & des Sciences. Sur La Chine. [WITH:] Considérations générales, sur l’étude et les connaissances que demande la composition des ouvrages de géographie.
Publication
A Pe-Kin, et se trouvé a Paris, for the Author; Lambert, 1776 and 1777.
Description
Octavo (205 by 120mm), two works bound in one volume, title, [2]-47pp, light spotting [AND] title, [2]-111pp., light spotting, marbled edges, pink silk marker, contemporary polished calf gilt, spine with three black morocco labels, lettered in gilt.
Collation
A-C8; A-G8.
References
Cordier, Sinica 187; Lust 154; Lowendahl 585.
£4,500.00
D’Anville’s maps of China
First editions of two works by the great French cartographer d’Anville, who was engaged by the Jesuits to produce three maps based on the findings of the Jesuit missionaries to China, for inclusion in Pierre Du Halde’s ‘Description géographique... de l’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise’ (1735). These were subsequently revised for the ‘Nouvel atlas de la Chine’ (1737). In the ‘Mémoire’ he provided a comprehensive explanation for his methodology in preparing the maps, the sources he had chosen to draw from and an overview of earlier expeditions undertaken to China and Tibet.
[a, b] ANONYMOUS [c] Li Shoupeng [d, e,f] [Wang Zhiyuan after Huang Shang]
[a, b] Yu ji tu 禹跡圖 (Map tracing the tracks of Yu the Great); Hua yi tu 華夷圖 (Map of the Chinese and non-Chinese).
[c] Pingjiang tu 平江圖 (Map of Suzhou city).
[d, e, f] Dili tu 墜理圖 (Geographic Map of China); Tianwen tu 天文 圖 (Map of the heavens); Diwang shaoyun tu 帝王紹運圖 (The chronological table of Emperors).
Publication
[a, b] Xi’an, c1900 [1136].
[c] Suzhou, [绍定二年, 1229].
[d, e, f] [Suzhou, 1247 but later].
Description Ink rubbings from stone steles.
Dimensions
[a, b] 800 by 790mm (31.5 by 31 inches); 790 by 780mm (31 by 30.75 inches).
[c] 2680 by 1365mm (105.5 by 53.75 inches).
[d, e, f] 1790 by 960mm (70.5 by 37.75 inches); 1810 by 985mm (71.25 by 38.75 inches); 1830 by 965mm (72 by 38 inches).
References
De Weerdt, ‘Maps and Memory: Readings of Cartography in Twelfth- and ThirteenthCentury Song China’, ‘The International Journal for the History of Cartography’, volume 61, part 2 , pages 145–167 (2020); Smith, ‘Mapping China and Managing the World; Culture, Cartography and Cosmology in Late Imperial Times’, pages 56–58 (2013).
£250,000.00
The Iconology of Empire
A collection of six stone stele rubbings comprising the earliest geographically accurate map of China, the first urban plan made within the realm, and the oldest stone-engraved celestial map of the Chinese heavens.
The original engravings were made between 1136 and 1247 during the Southern Song dynasty. Together they represent a comprehensive study of ancient Chinese cartographical rubbings.
Among the earliest techniques in the art of Chinese cartography is that of making rubbings from stone steles. Unlike copperplate or woodblock prints which show the reversed image of the carved surfaces, rubbing is akin to photography, drawing the image directly from the object. Ink is applied to paper laid over engraved stone or wood, thus registering the entire surface of the object; the engraved inscription or image appears white against a black background. The present rubbings were taken in the late nineteenth century; whilst the stone steles themselves remain intact, they are now significantly weathered, and it is no longer possible to take impressions. Thus, each rubbing is incredibly rare and to have a set of six is remarkable.
Some of the earliest Chinese imperial maps are stone rubbings. Empire maps were graphic representations of territories that symbolised imperial power and bore the transhistorical significance of the Chinese dynasties.
The present collection includes some of the earliest examples of such maps, including the twelfth century Yu ji tu 禹跡圖 (Item a) and Hua yi tu 華夷圖 (Item b). e present pair of Yu ji tu and Hua yi tu were engraved in the same year, AD 1136, on the two sides of the same stone tablet. The former is the earliest extant map of China intended to be geographically accurate, and the latter the earliest surviving map of China to relate the empire with foreign states.
Pingjiang tu 平江圖 (Item c) is the largest extant stone rubbing map, displaying the first ever city plan made in China, of Pingjiang, now Suzhou, in the Jiangsu Province. e map was originally engraved on a large stone stele in AD 1229 during the Southern Song Dynasty, and is one of the most complete and detailed Chinese urban plans. It depicts the city walls and gates, government and police buildings, water channels, streets, 359 bridges, 250 temples, public venues and residential blocks.
The original stele Pingjiang tu is held at the Confucian Temple in Suzhou, along with the other three stone steles engraved with Dili tu 墜 理圖 (Item d) – one of the earliest extant maps of the entire geography of China, Tianwen tu 天文圖 (Item e) - the earliest extant stone - engraved example of a celestial map, and Diwang shaoyun tu 帝王紹運 圖 (Item f ) – the only extant chart depicting the lineage of the emperors throughout the imperial history of China.
These three maps were part of a set of eight paintings originally made and presented to the future Song Emperor Ningzong (r.1194-1224 AD) in c1190 by scholar official Huang Shang 黃裳, who was appointed Ningzong’s tutor. The set was intended as a warning of how much land had been lost to the northern barbarians, and as a reminder of the sovereign’s responsibility to reunite the empire. In the year of 1247, Wang Zhiyuan 王致遠, who was a scholar during Emperor Ningzong’s reign, obtained the set of eight paintings and engraved them onto stone steles. Common to all three maps is the text in the lower half which accounts for the image above.
The Chinese empire was thus preserved and promulgated by the engraving of such maps on the enduring medium of stone, serving as a concrete means of asserting authority and territorial claims.
ORTELIUS, Abraham
Chinae olim Sinarum regionis, nova descriptio. Auctore Ludouico Georgio.
The earliest printed map to focus on China, and the first to illustrate the Great Wall. It was the first western map of China drawn directly from the findings of the Portuguese mapmaker Luis Jorge de Barbuda, or Ludovicus Georgius. Barbuda was a Jesuit, and he made a manuscript map of China from information on the area gathered by the Jesuit mission. Arias Montanus passed this map on to Ortelius. He issued this first separately published map of China in 1584, which remained the standard map of China for over fifty years.
The map is oriented to the west. Japan is shown on a curved projection, borrowing from Portuguese sources. Wind wagons are shown in the north, a Chinese invention that also became popular in the Low Countries.
The text on the reverse of the map is in Latin and gives an insight into the climate, national features, inhabitants and economy of China at that time.
The mapmaker Abraham Ortelius is one of the most famous of the early mapmakers and publishers. His ‘Atlas of the Whole World’ ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ was first published in 1570, the first uniformly sized, systematic collection of maps and hence can be called the first ‘Atlas’. These beautiful maps were elegantly engraved by Frans Hogenberg.
ORTELIUS, Abraham
Chinae olim Sinarum regionis, nova descriptio. Auctore Ludouico Georgio.
Engraved map with hand colour, loss to top right margin skilfully reinstated.
Dimensions 450 by 540mm (17.75 by 21.25 inches).
References van der Krogt, Peter C.J. “Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici. New Edition”, 31:351.
£4,500.00
The earliest printed map to focus on China
The earliest printed map to focus on China, and the first to illustrate the Great Wall. It was the first western map of China drawn directly from the findings of the Portuguese mapmaker Luis Jorge de Barbuda, or Ludovicus Georgius. Barbuda was a Jesuit, and he made a manuscript map of China from information on the area gathered by the Jesuit mission. Arias Montanus passed this map on to Ortelius. He issued this first separately published map of China in 1584, which remained the standard map of China for over fifty years.
The map is oriented to the west. Japan is shown on a curved projection, borrowing from Portuguese sources. Wind wagons are shown in the north, a Chinese invention that also became popular in the Low Countries.
The text on the reverse of the map is in Latin and gives an insight into the climate, national features, inhabitants and economy of China at that time.
The mapmaker Abraham Ortelius is one of the most famous of the early mapmakers and publishers. His ‘Atlas of the Whole World’ ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ was first published in 1570, the first uniformly sized, systematic collection of maps and hence can be called the first ‘Atlas’. These beautiful maps were elegantly engraved by Frans Hogenberg.
DE JODE, Cornelius
China Regnum.
Publication
Antwerp, Collectore Cornelio de Iudeis, [1593].
Description
Double-page engraved map, fine original hand-colour.
Dimensions 365 by 450mm (14.25 by 17.75 inches).
References Van der Krogt 8410:32.
£27,000.00
De Jode’s rare map of China
De Jode first published his ‘Speculum’ in 1578. Intended as competition to Ortelius’s popular ‘Theatrum’, it faired poorly and sales were disappointing, another edition was produced, after de Jode’s death by his son Cornelius in 1593. For this edition, Cornelius introduced several new maps, of which the present item is a superb example.
The map is based upon the work of the Portuguese Jorge de Barbuda, whose map of China appeared in the work of de Jode’s competitor, Ortelius, in 1584. The circular map is framed by elaborate strap-work and four vignettes of Far Eastern life: fish-catching cormorants; a fishing boat with a chimneytopped cabin with a pen attached to the side sheltering domestic fowl; the worship of a triple-headed deity; and the famous wind carts depicted on many early European maps of the region, including those of Hondius and Speed.
LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huyghen; and Arnold and Henrik Floris van LANGREN
Exacta & Accurata Delineatio cum Orarum Maritimarum tum etjam locorum terrestrium quae in Regionibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboja sive Champa, Syao, Malacca, Arracan & Pegu.
Description Engraved map with fine original hand-colour.
Dimensions 520 by 381mm (20.5 by 15 inches).
References Suarez, ‘Early Mapping of Southeast Asia’, 1999, page 178.
£16,500.00
“from the most correct charts that the Portuguese pilots make use of” (Linschoten)
A map of the East Indies and the southern Pacific, showing China, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Borneo, Korea (as an island), Japan, Java, and Beach, oriented to the west. First published in Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s (1563–1611) ‘Itinerario, Voyage ofte Schipvaert van J.H. van Linschoten’, published by Cornelis Claesz in 1596. The coastal and navigational details are taken from the Portuguese portolans copied by Linschoten. It is exceptionally detailed; the first published map of the area to be prepared primarily from Portuguese sources, but also drawing on Petrus Plancius.
The map’s “representation of Japan and Southeast Asia, except for the Philippines, was based on the work of the Portuguese cartographer Fernao Vaz Dourado, while the depiction of China is taken from Barbuda. The Philippines appears to be a variant of the Lasso model, and is most obviously characterized by its perculiar east-west orientation for Palawin… Linschoten labels the island of Seram as “Os Papuas”. Reinforcing Plancius’s confusion of Seram with the newly-emerging land of New Guinea. His depiction of New Guinea, however, proved influential at a later date; Thomas Forrest, who explored New Guinea in the service of the East India Company in 1774-76, cited the Linschoten map as proof that the islands of New Britain discovered by William Dampier were one and the same archipelago as the Solomon Islands. He reproduced the New Guinea section from the Linschoten map and compared with that of Dampier: “It is to be regretted, that Dampier, who sailed to New Britain in the Roebuck 1699, had not seen Linschoten’s map. Such a guide might have induced him to put into harbours which he did not visit, not knowing they existed: for the least additional light to a discoverer may be productive of important consequences” (Suarez).
The map also records information from the travel accounts of Marco Polo, including the “beach provincia auriferain”, at roughly where the northwest coast of Australia would eventually be discovered.
From the first book of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s ‘Itinerario’, the first printed work to include precise sailing instructions for the East Indies. It allowed Dutch merchants to circumvent the Portuguese stranglehold on trade to the East. It was of such economic utility that “it was given to each ship sailing from Holland to India” and soon became “the navigator’s vade mecum for the Eastern seas” (Penrose).
SPEED, John
The Kingdome of China newly augmented by I.S. 1626.
Publication [London], Are to be sold in pops-head Alley by G. Humble, 1626, [but 1627-1632].
A map of China (also encompassing Korea and some of the islands of Japan), from the first atlas compiled and published by an Englishman, Speed’s ‘Prospect’.
Along the top of the map is a decorative border, with bird’s-eye views of the islands of Macao, after de Bry, and Quinzay (modern-day Hangzhou), as well as – dubiously accurate – vignettes showing ‘ye Ma[n]ner of their Travelling by la[n]d’ and ‘the Manner of their Execution’. Along the sides of the map are depicted figures, including one of the earliest European depictions of a Japanese soldier. Korea is shown as a long island and Japan is drawn after Ortelius and Teixeira. The Great Wall of China (“built by ye King of China against ye breaking in of ye Tartars”) separates China from the ‘Desert Lop’, which divides it from Russia. Here, small diabolical figures are illustrated, accompanied by the warning that “men are thought to be seduced by wonderfull illusions and divilish spitting”.
Accompanying text in English, ‘The Description of the Kingdome of China’, is printed on the reverse.
The mapmaker John Speed (1552-1629) was the outstanding cartographer of his age. By trade a merchant tailor, but by proclivity a historian, it was the patronage of Sir Fulke Greville, poet and statesman, that allowed him to pursue this interest in earnest. His ‘Theatre of Great Britain’, first published in 1611 or 1612, was the first large-scale printed atlas of the British Isles. The ‘Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World’, from which the present work is drawn, appeared in 1627, bound with the ‘Theatre’, and is the first world atlas compiled by an Englishman to be published in England. Engraved in Amsterdam, many of the maps are anglicized versions of works by Dutch makers in distinctive carte-à-figure style, featuring borders with figures in local costume and city views.
DUDLEY, Robert
Carta particolare del mare di Cocincina con la parte Australe della Cina...
Publication [Florence, 1661].
Description Engraved chart.
Dimensions
460 by 370mm (18 by 14.5 inches).
£21,000.00
The first chart of the Chinese Coast on Mercator’s Projection
A fine example with a strong impression of this elegantly engraved chart, the earliest to focus on the southernmost part of the coast of China that includes Hong Kong and Macao; the chart also includes the northern coast of Vietnam. The city of Canton (Guangzhou) is shown, as is the mouth of the Pearl River; Hainan Island appears in a somewhat distorted form; and a large lake feeds a “R. De Cocincina”.
The chart appeared in the ‘Arcano del Mare’, a landmark of nautical cartography that was the first to use the Mercator Projection in a sea atlas, also the first to show prevailing winds and currents in the main harbors and anchorages, and the first to give magnetic declination. Thus, Dudley’s was the first nautical atlas with worldwide coverage that could actually be used for navigation. In their visual character, Dudley’s charts are utterly unique and are especially notable for their ornate calligraphic lettering and understated but fine decorative details.
Dudley was one of the most colourful figures among early mapmakers. He was the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Essex, one-time paramour of Elizabeth I. The younger Dudley attempted to lead a voyage to China but was rebuffed in this by Elizabeth. He had to settle for backing a failed voyage in 1596 by Benjamin Wood to Southeast Asia. So, not able to secure a position in England commensurate with his abilities due to his illegitimacy, Dudley made his way to Florence, where he became a valuable courtier to the Medicis, supervising several important engineering projects, and also finding the time to produce his magnificent atlas.
BLAEU, Johannes
Quantung, Imperii Sinarum
Provincia Duoecima.
Publication Amsterdam, 1655.
Description
The text on the reverse of this map is in Latin.
Dimensions 527 by 612mm (20.75 by 24 inches).
References
Van der Krogt, [8432:2]; Nebenzahl, ‘Mapping of the Silk Road and Beyond’, 4.9.
£3,500.00
First Western Map of Quantung
Map of the province of Guangdong (Canton), showing Hong Kong and Macau. From the first atlas of China published in Europe, ‘Novus Atlas Sinensis’, based on the surveys of Martino Martini.
Martino Martini (1614-1661) was an Italian Jesuit missionary and scholar who travelled widely through China, gathering scientific information on the geography of the empire. In 1651, after nearly a decade in Asia, he was ordered to Rome as the Delegate for the Chinese Mission Superior. He travelled to Europe and took with him over fifty books and maps. Among these were a copy of the manuscript atlas of the Chinese provinces compiled by Zhu Siben (1311-1312), and revisions from the printed atlas of Luo Hongxiang (1555).
The journey to Europe was lengthy, Martini’s ship being captured by the Dutch and sent to Java, before he was eventually sent to Amsterdam aboard a Dutch East India Company ship. During a voyage the lasted nearly four years, Martini used the time to prepare Latin translations of the texts he had brought with him and wrote his own description of China. Once in Amsterdam he persuaded Blaeu to postpone his other projects and to prioritise his atlas of China instead. The resulting atlas consisted of Martini’s first person account of his findings in China and seventeen maps; a general map of China, a map of each of the fifteen provinces, and a map of Japan. The Blaeu epitomised the “golden age” of Dutch cartography. Their output of Globes, Sea Charts, Maps and Atlases being not only historically informative, but of such beauty and distinction that they were worthy of presentation to foreign dignitaries as a symbol of the Dutch Empire and the expertise of its craftsmen. The contemporary colouring of Blaeu maps is distinctive in tone and care of application, and is frequently heightened with gold embellishment, especially if required for a special presentation copy.
[Anonymous]
Guangdong shengcheng quantu
Guangdong shengcheng quantu
[A Complete map of the provincial city of Guangdong province] 廣東 省城全圖
Publication [Guangzhou, c1822].
Description Woodcut on paper mounted as fan on wooden sticks.
Dimensions
302 by 500mm (12 by 19.75 inches).
£6,500.00
A rare Chinese fan depicting provincial city of
Guangdong
A rare Chinese fan depicting the provincial city of Guangdong province, which is now part of Guangzhou city. Guangzhoufu 廣州府 (Guangzhou prefecture), is depicted at the centre encircled by city wall. The names of streets, bridges, temples, forts, rivers and mountains are marked in Chinese, and represented by two-dimensional diagrams.
Several famous sites can be identified on the map, for example, immediately below the middle of the top rim is depicted a pagoda and marked in Chinese: Wucenglou 五層樓 (Five-Storied Pagoda), which now is known as Zhenhailou 鎮海樓 (Sea-Guardian Building). It is located in Yuexiu Park, in central Guangzhou, and now houses the Guangzhou Museum. It was first built in 1380, at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, by the Yongjia Marquis Zhu Liangzu 朱亮祖. The tower is 92 feet (25 meters) in height, 102 feet (31 meters) in width and 52 feet (16 meters) in depth.
Above the lower rim to the left is a house with two floors, symbolising a temple marked as “海幢寺”. Haitongsi 海幢寺 is a Buddhist temple and monastery on Henan Island in Guangzhou. The official English form of the name is ‘Hoi Tong Monastery’, a transcription of the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese translation of the Indian Buddhist monk Sāgaradhvaja. The monastery was first established as the Qianqiu 千秋 Temple under the Southern Han, a tenth century Tang successor state whose capital was at Xingwang (now Guangzhou). The walled city lay north of the Pearl River, while Henan Island and the monastery lay to its south. By the end of the Ming, the temple operated within the private garden of Guo Longyue 郭龙岳, who was responsible for renaming it after the Buddhist monk Sāgaradhvaja. The temple complex was particularly important to foreign visitors as it was one of the few locations in Guangzhou (Canton) open to them before the First Opium War.
[BRITISH ADMIRALTY]
The North East Provinces of China Including The Coast From Chusan to the Gulf of Liau-Tong Compiled From Du Halde’s Maps of 1738, McCartney, Barrow, Parish and Staunton 1793-7, Klaproth & Biot 1842, The Admiralty Survys By Captns. Bethune, Kellett & Collinson 1842, Capn. Vansittart 1855, Comr. Ward & Lieut. Bullock 1858, Monsr. Ploix’ Survey of The Tien-Tsin River 1858. Part of the Coat of Pe-Chilli From A Survey by Major A Fisher, R.E. Septr. 1859.
Publication
London, The Admiralty, 1860.
Description
Lithograph map, original hand colouring, dissected and laid on linen, publisher’s plum cloth folding case, manuscript label in French to spine, old pen and pencil marking of a French ship’s voyage to and from Shanghai.
Dimensions
1005 by 660mm (39.5 by 26 inches).
£8,000.00
Second Opium War Map
A rare admiralty chart, on an unusual conical projection, of the northern Chinese provinces, including Shanghai, Nanking and Peking, during the Second Opium War.
The chart includes annotations in French showing the course of a ship which entered Shanghai from the south and thereafter departed to the north between June 8 and July 3. The user was thwarted, however, by the conical projection, making the course incorrect, as can be seen with the correction to the position of July 2.
It encompasses the area from Nimrod Sound (象山港 Xiangshan Gang) and the Chusan Archipelago (舟山群岛 Zhoushan qundao) in the south to the Gulf of Liau-Tong (辽东) in the north. The chart includes sounding depths as a navigation aid, but it also contains details of the interior, such as roads, rivers and cities. Marked with a crenulated pattern is the Great Wall extending across the ancient northern border.
The title block includes the title, a glossary of Chinese and Tartar words, two scales, and notes on vocabulary and terminology. There is also the seal of the Hydrographic Office and the price of this separately-issued chart, 5 shillings. The author of this chart, Edward J. Powell, also completed charts of Bombay Harbor and New Zealand for the Hydrographic Office.
Additionally, the title block includes a list of sources for this chart, which includes Duhalde’s classic 1738 map. Most of the sources, however, are more recent surveys from the 1850s. These recent surveys, and the detail inland, signal that this is no ordinary chart. Unlike most Admiralty charts, this item clearly had purpose other than navigation; it was meant to offer a better delineation of the theater of the Second Opium War.
Rare, with only a single other example traced in the trade (Bonhams London, Dec 04 2012). WorldCat and OCLC locate examples in the British Library, Harvard College Library, SOAS University of London and the Bibliotheque National de France.
[ANONYMOUS]
Russian Chinese Frontiers [and] Russian Province of Fergana.
Publication [Shanghai], 1880.
Description Three lithograph maps.
Dimensions
400 by 530mm (15.75 by 20.75 inches).
References Scott, David. China and the International System, 1840-1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008.
£1,200.00
The Chinese-Russian frontiers
The growing number of expatriates, servicemen and foreign workers based in China during the late-nineteenth century prompted numerous publishers to set up foreign-language periodicals to cater to the international community. Several English newspapers appeared, including the ‘Evening Gazette’, the ‘Shanghai Courier’, the ‘China Gazette’, the ‘Mercury’, and ‘The Celestial Empire’. These publications documented an important period in Chinese history, as incursions from Japanese, Russian, British and Ottoman forces each took their toll.
During the mid-nineteenth century, the Chinese and Russian empires expanded into what is now Kazakhstan and Western Xinjiang. Upon meeting, the powers both signed the Treaty of Kulka in 1851, which legalised trade between both countries in the region. During the Second Opium War, however, Russia took advantage of China’s weakened position and annexed the north back of the Amur River and the coast down to the Korean border, while also gaining control of Sakhalin Island alongside Japan.
Tensions remained high throughout the1860s and 1870s. In 1868, Russia launched its first attempt to expel the Chinese from the territory, resulting in the Manza War, in which they were ultimately unsuccessful. The Chinese General Zuo Zongtang called for war against Russia, and in 1878 began to amass troops, causing his opponents to retreat from the city of Kuldja which they were besieging, and demonstrating that the Chinese had built up a modernised arsenal of weaponry since their last conflict. In fact, in 1880 huge quantities of military equipment were shipped to China from Europe.
It is this period of tension shown on the present maps, which were included with editions of ‘The Celestial Empire’ and the ‘Shanghai Courier’ in 1880, as noted in red beneath the images. The first is a map of the ChineseRussian frontiers, with Mongolia and Manchuria clearly identified in the centre, and many other important cities, rivers, mountains and roads represented. The second shows the Kuldja Triangle, in modern-day Kazakhstan, which was the centre of the conflict in which Chinese troops forced out the occupying Russians. The contemporary frontier, according to Russia sources, is contrasted against the frontier of ten years earlier. The final map focuses on “The Russian Province of Fergana and the Pamir Plateau showing the adjacent Chinese Territory and Indian Frontier (according to Russian Surveys in 1878 and 1879)”. Mountains, cities, rivers, roads and lakes are represented, with elevation given in feet.
Die Apostolischen Vicariate China’s.
Publication 1881.
Description
Manuscript map with original hand colour.
Dimensions
571 by 588mm (22.5 by 23.25 inches).
£2,000.00
A German missionary map of China
A German map of China, concentrating on the ecclesiastical division of the country. China is divided into apostolic vicariates, regions, and civil provinces and districts. Apostolic vicariates are established by the Roman Catholic church in missionary regions which have not yet been divided into dioceses. Vicariates are outlined in red; regions in green, and provinces and districts in yellow and red dashes respectively. The location of the priest in each vicariate is indicated by a red two-barred cross. The diocese of Macao is outlined in navy blue. Macao is a diocese rather than a vicariate because it had been held by the Portuguese since the sixteenth century, and Pope Gregory XIII established a bishop there in 1576, originally as a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Goa. A table to the right lists the vicariates, the date of their foundation, and the order that founded them.
At the time the map was drawn, Germany did not hold any concessions in China (although they would by 1898), but the Treaty of Tientsin in 1861 had opened up the country to European trade. During the second half of the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, Germany was keen only to challenge Britain’s position in trade with China, with relatively little of the imperial ambition which defined the relations between China and most other European countries. By 1896, the volume of trade between China and Germany was second only to the trade between China and Britain.
This map may have been made by a German missionary to China - a substantial minority of the German population was Roman Catholic. A few decades before this map was made, Catholicism in China was in danger. Laws enacted by a succession of emperors sentenced missionaries to death for spreading Christianity, authorised the sale of converts into slavery, and banned Christian texts. The restrictions on the church were lifted as part of the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, and missionaries were allowed to return, perhaps allowing this map to be made.
A. Pierre, S.J.
Mission de la Compagnie de Jésus au Kiang-Nan (Chine). [1] Carte de la Section de Song-Kang [Songjiang] (1886-1887); [2] Essai de carte de la province du Ngan-Hoei [Anhui] (1888); [3] Carte de la Section de Sou-Tseu [Suzhou] (1885-1886); [4] Essai de Carte du T’che Tcheou fou [Chizhou] (1888). [5*] Mission de Nanking. Section de Tsong-Ming [Chongming] (1885-1886).
Publication China, 1885-1888.
Description Five coloured engravings, minor loss along borders, mounted on white boards.
Dimensions 632 by 487mm (25 by 19.25 inches).
References Harrison, Henrietta. 2008. A penny for the little Chinese: The French Holy Childhood Association in China, 1843-1951. American Historical Review 113, no. 1: 72-92. Montanar, Valentine. “Kiang-nan.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 5 Nov.
£9,000.00
Rare Jesuit made maps of Jiangnan province in China
A set of five rare maps depicting Kiangnan (Jiangnan), an area in China situated south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The maps were made from 1885 to 1888 by the French Jesuits who were the most active missionaries in late nineteenth-century China.
In the nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries took advantage of the imperialist ventures undertaken by the West to develop a cohesive and well-financed missionary enterprise in China. One of the most successful regions for the apostolic efforts in China was overseen by the French Jesuits of the Paris province, who operated the Mission du Kiangnan in Shanghai and its vicinity of Jiangnan. They established their ministry there in the 1840s, and it lasted until the indigenisation of the Catholic hierarchy in 1946, and effectively until the eviction of the foreign missionaries in early years of the People’s Republic.
Four out of the five maps were made for the Jesuit mission in Jiangnan area, which depict Song-Kang 松江 (Songjiang), Ngan-Hoei 安徽 (Anhui), T’che Tcheou fou 池州 (Chizhou), and Sou-Tseu 苏州 (Suzhou). The other, a map of Tsong-Ming 崇明 (Chongming), was made for Mission de Nanking, depicting an alluvial island at the mouth of the Yangtze River to the north of Shanghai.
‘Carte de la Section de Song-Kang’ [Songjiang] (1886-1887); 松江
The map of Song-Kang depicts modern-day Shanghai, a critical fulcrum for Jesuit activities in China particularly in the nineteenth century. It is the only map in this set labelled with both Chinese and phoneticized toponyms.
Shanghai had been established as a centre for Jesuit activities since 1600s by Xu Guangqi 徐光启 who is also known by his baptismal name Paul. It became the most convenient location for missionary activities after the First Opium War. Shanghai was forced to open up to European trade, from which subsequently ensued the establishment of Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession.
Song-Kang is located between the southern estuary of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay, depicted to the upper and lower right of the map. The city is delineated by Suzhou and Zhejiang provinces to the northwest and southwest, and the Huangpu River branching off of the Yangtze River flowing southwards, separating ‘Pou Tong’ (浦東 Pudong) to the east. A table to the lower left lists nine districts, each registered with the number of chapels and the number of Christians. On the map, the nine districts are distinguished by colour, from north to south including 嘉定 Ka-ding, 青浦 Tsing-pou, 佘山 Lo-sè, 泗涇 Se-king, 七寶 Tsi-pao, 松江 Song-kang, 马 橋 Mo Ghiao, 洙涇 Tsu-king and 亭林 Ting-ling. Chapels in each district are marked in red with the toponyms.
From north to south along the Huangpu River are prominent districts densely marked with places of worships, including ‘Tsing-pou’ (Qingpu) district with ‘Changhai’ (Shanghai) city bordering the river. To the southwest of Shanghai, above the upper-middle reaches of Huangpu River, are ‘Song-kang’ (Songjiang) and ‘Mo Ghiao’ (Maqiao), which also show a significant number of red notations indicating chapels. To the upper left is a table listing the number of orphans adopted by the Jesuits in the years between 1880-1885.
‘Essai de carte de la province du Ngan-Hoei’ [Anhui] (1888); 安徽
The map of Ngan-Hoei depicts the present Anhui province, located across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, bordering Jiangsu to the east. The prefectures are distinguished by different colours. The subprefectures, districts and lower administrative units are distinctively indicated with symbols which are illustrated in the legend below the title.
Long before Ngan-Hoei [Anhui] became a province, Jesuits had already made their way to the area, where the religion had in fact been introduced as early as the Yuan Dynasty. The end of Ming Dynasty coincided with the rise of Protestantism in Europe during the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The split of the Western Church into Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church triggered defensive actions by the latter to protect their status. One action was sending the Jesuits to carry out missionary activities outside of Europe. In the early years of Qing Dynasty, Catholic missionaries began religious activities in Ngan-Hoei [Anhui] by building more churches and preaching more actively. These activities were mainly concentrated in northern Anhui, Anqing and Chizhou in western Anhui, and Huizhou in southern Anhui.
‘Province du Ngan-Hoei. Essai de Carte du T’che Tcheou fou’ [Chizhou] (1888). 池州
The centre of this map shows T’che Tcheou Fou (池州 Chizhou Prefecture) coloured in yellow. Its neighbouring Ngan-King-Fou (安庆Anqing Prefecture) is marked in red, located in the southwest on the north side of the Yangtze River. Most of the dioceses in T’che Tcheou Fou are shown to be located in the area enclosed by two counties in ‘Kiang-si’ (Jiangxi) Province, namely ‘Peng-tse Hien’ (彭泽县 Pengze District) to the west and ‘Feou Leang Hien’ (浮梁县 Fuliang District). The dioceses are depicted as crosses on red dots.
The map covers the section of Ngan-Hoei [Anhui] province located across the Yangtze River, extending from Tung-ling Hien (铜陵县Tongling District) bordering Tai-ping Fou (Taiping Prefecture) in the northeast to Wang-kiang Hien (望江Wangjiang District) in the southwest. Huangshan
(Yellow Mountain) is prominently marked to the southeast, and appears as the border of ‘Hoei-tcheou fou’ (徽州府 Huizhou Prefecture).
‘Carte de la Section de Sou-Tseu’ [Suzhou] (1885-1886); 苏州
Sou-Tseu (Suzhou) was a major city in Kiang-Nan, to the south east of the modern-day Jiangsu Province of East China, about 100 km west of Shanghai.
The administrative divisions of Suzhou are listed to the lower right of the map in Romanised Mandarin and local dialect, which include 苏州 府 (Suzhou Prefecture), 吴县(Wu District), 长州县(Changzhou District), 元和县(Yuanhe District), 昆山县(Kunshan District), 新阳县(Xinyang District), 常熟县(Changshu district), 昭文县(Zhaowen District), 吴江县 (Wujiang District), 震泽县(Zhenze District) and 太湖厅(Taihu office). The toponyms reflect the time at which the map was made, as the divisions and the names were changed after 1911.
A table to the top left lists the chapels and the number of Christians in four districts in Suzhou in 1885-1886. The chapels are marked in red on the map.
‘Mission de Nanking. Section de Tsong-Ming’ [Chongming] (1885-1886).
The map of Tsong-Ming depicts the Chongming district, consisting of three low-lying inhabited alluvial islands at the mouth of the Yangtze north of the Shanghai peninsula. Toponyms are marked throughout the map with ecclesiastical entities identified. The shape of the island in the year 1879 is shown in dotted line, the network of lines depicted throughout the island indicate the canals, the shaded squares represent the towns, and a cross on top of a circle indicates chapels.
The table in the lower section includes detailed lists of chapels established in the north, centre and south of the island, and correspondingly the number of missionaries at each site. The right half of the table entitled ‘Oeuvre de la Sainte-Enfance dans la Section de Tsong-Ming’ (Association of the Holy Childhood) lists the number of children baptized and adopted by the association. L’Oeuvre de la Sainte Enfance was a Catholic children’s association for the benefit of foreign missions, established in 1843 by CharlesAuguste-Marie-Joseph de Forbin Janson, the bishop of Nancy, whose purpose was to baptise abandoned children in China, to buy them from their families and raise them in Christian families, and later to build schools on the country’s frontiers to train them as missionaries.
JAPANESE HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE
Yang Tse Kiang ShanghaiNanking 支那, 揚子江:上海至南京
Publication Tokyo, 水路部 Hydrographic Office, 1895 [1897].
Description Lithograph chart.
Dimensions
695 by 1020mm (27.25 by 40.25 inches).
£1,000.00
Japanese Admiralty chart of Shanghai and the Yangtze River
Detailed chart of Yangtze River from Shanghai to Nanjing, published during the First Sino-Japanese War, and adapted from British Admiralty Chart No. 2809.
Following on from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 the government established the Japan Hydrographic Department in 1871 in order to undertake detailed surveys of Japanese coastal waters as well as areas that were deemed crucial to their national interest. During the 1870s and 1880s the British Navy was regarded as the model for the development of the Japanese Navy. The Douglas mission of 1873-1879 laid the foundation of Japanese naval officer training and a British naval lieutenant John M. James, who had been surveying Japanese coastal waters, was hired to advise the Naval Ministry. British Admiralty Charts had a high reputation for accuracy and their maps were copied by the Hydrographic Department during the late 1880s. Many of the hydrographic surveys in this period were in fact operated by British surveying vessels who then supplied the information to Japan in order to build good relations.
GAILLARD, Père Louis
Plan de Nankin 江甯府城圖. Par Le P. Louis Gaillard S.J.
Publication
Chang-hai [Shanghai], Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, December 1898.
Description
Coloured lithograph plan of Nanjing, Chinese printed in red, French printed in black.
Dimensions 1080 by 820mm (42.5 by 32.25 inches).
£2,500.00
A map of Nankin [Nanjing] published in December 1898, compiled by Père Louis Gaillard (1850–1900). The names of geographical details and locations are printed in Chinese and French, with colours red and black respectively. Nanjing was the capital city in during latter half of the Ming dynasty until the mid seventeenth century, the imperial palace is depicted as a square and titled Huang cheng 皇城 (Emperor’s city) to the southeast of the lake Hou hu 後湖 “Luc Heou-hu”. Near the top right of the palace, next to a small lake Qian hu 前湖 (Former lake) are two notable sites in Nanjing: Xiegong dun 謝公墩 (Duke Xie’s memorial) and Banshan si 半山 寺 (Banshan temple). They have been controversial due to their connotations of renowned historical figures. Xiegong 謝公 is the honorific title of Xie
An 謝安 (320–385), a Jin Dynasty (265-420) statesman who, despite his lack of military ability, led Jin through a major series of attacks by Former Qin (351–394). Banshan temple is known to be the abode of Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021-1086), a Chinese economist, poet and prominent political reformist during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127).
The map is included in Nankin d’alors et d’aujourd’hui, no.16 of the ‘Variétés sinologiques’, a French-language sinological book series published by the leader of the French Jesuits Henri Havret (1848-1902). The series has 66 volumes, produced in Shanghai between 1892 and 1938 by the Imprimerie de la mission catholique de l’orphelinat de T’ou-Sè-Wè (printing house of the T’ou-Sè-Wè orphanage). T’ou-Sè-Wè [Tushanwan] orphanage, also a vocational school and a printing house, was built in 1864 by the French Jesuits in Shanghai Xujiahui district, and closed in 1960, lasting nearly a century. The production of the series saw through the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and halted at the beginning of the second (1937-1945). The series resumed under the title ‘New Series’ (N.S.) starting from vol. 67 (1982) under the auspices of the Ricci Institute.
The mapmaker Père Louis Gaillard (1850–1900) was a nineteenth century French sinologist and Jesuit missionary who studied notably in Nankin, Shandong (Yantai), Guangdong (Pearl River) in China. Gaillard’s other publications related to China include: ‘Études d’art chinois: Le dessin en Chine. Nankin’, (1889); No. 18 ‘Nankin d’alors et d’aujourd’hui, Variétés Sinologique’ (1901); and No. 3 ‘Croix et swastika en Chine, Variétés Sinologique’ (1893). The last paragraph of the preface of ‘Croix et swastika en Chine’ speaks for their intention in China:
“Nous nous bornons rigoureusement aux recherches d’archéologie, d’art et d’histoire, protestant par avance que nous adhérons de tout coeur au plus pur enseignement de l’Eglise”.
(We strictly limit ourselves to the researches of archeology, art and history, protesting in advance that we adhere wholeheartedly to the purest teaching of the Church).
Scale: 1:14500
Rare. We are only able to trace two institutional examples: the National Library of Australia, and the Stanford University Libraries.
[ANONYMOUS]
[British Legation Peking].
Publication [Peking, c1900].
Description
Manuscript map (227 by 175mm) in pencil and coloured pencil, with ink annotations, minor foxing, pasted on paper. Contemporary newspaper clipping affixed to upper left corner with pin. Two photographs (86 by 295mm) pasted to verso, sun-spotted, bleached and toned. Separate sheet with two photographs pasted to front, one to verso, in same condition.
Dimensions (map) 340 by 261mm (13.5 by 10.25 inches).
References
Conger, ‘Letters from China with Particular Reference to the Empress Dowager and the Women of China’ (Chicago, 1909); CranmerByng, ‘The old British Legation at Peking, 1860-1959: Based on a Lecture Delivered on 20 August, 1962’, (Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1963); Preston, ‘The Boxer Rebellion’, (New York: Berkley Books, 2000); Thompson, ‘William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion’, (Jefferson, NC, 2009); Wilkinson, ‘“Where Chineses Drive” English StudentLife at Peking. By a student interpreter’, (London, 1885).
£1,500.00
A collection of contemporary documents from the
Boxer Rebellion
This unique manuscript plan of the Peking Legation Quarter records the positions of the two opposing sides during the most tense conflict of the Boxer Rebellion.
The Yihetaun Movement was a violent uprising in China at the turn of the twentieth century, inspired by the proto-nationalist sentiments of United in Righteousness, a militant group commonly referred to as “Boxers”. They condemned the presence of colonial and Christian influences in the country, and were incensed by the disruption that had resulted from the growth of foreign powers. Their activities grew increasingly violent throughout the late1890s until, against a background of severe drought, Boxer rebels converged on Beijing (then known as Peking). They marched on the city with the aim of “supporting the Qing government and exterminating the foreigners”. In fear of extermination, foreigners and Chinese Christians fled to the Legation Quarter, the foreign diplomatic centre in the city. Their panic was justified, as Empress Cixi sided with the Boxers and issued an imperial decree declaring war on foreign powers.
Combined forces from Japan, the United Kingdom, America, France Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary formed the ‘Eight-Nation Alliance’ to combat the Chinese attacks. The Boxers responded by besieging the Legation Quarter in the summer of 1900, during which the head of the British diplomatic embassy, Claude MacDonald, later stated that the 13th July was “the most harassing day”. The present plan maps the movements of both sides during this engagement, with an annotation explaining that “all north of blue line taken by enemy between 20th June - 10th July”. A newspaper clipping attached to the map recounts how the allied forces, led by British Lietenant-General Gaselee, liberated the Legation Quarter the following month, with the British the first to breach the Boxers’ siege lines. The rebellion was formally ended in 1901 with the Boxer Protocol, a settlement under which China was forced to pay a large indemnity to the foreign powers and accept that “the quarter occupied by the legations shall be considered as one specially reserved for their use and placed under their exclusive control, in which Chinese shall not have the right to reside and which may be made defensible”.
Included alongside the map are five photographs taken inside the Legation Quarter, helping to illustrate what life was like for the British troops stationed in Beijing during the conflict. One shows a tennis court set on the mountainside, which is referenced in the account of Wilkinson, a student interpreter at the British Legation. He records that “in summer there was tennis on the Legation lawn, and in the grounds of the residence of the young European employees of the China Maritime Customs, as well as garden parties at the American Legation”. Two other photographs capture the Quarter’s extensive gardens, filled with trees, bridges and pavilions. Wilkinson concedes that “it was an attractive place in which to stay.
Only the water-tower and the dingy brick power-plant spoilt the pleasant effect of trees and lawns and flowering shrubs. The large extent of the grounds deadened the noise of the city outside as well as attracting various wild birds - crows, cuckoos, magpies, hoopoes, woodpeckers and orioles”. A further photograph shows a line of Indian soldiers standing to attention in front of their barracks; as part of the British Empire, Indian forces played a key role in its military engagements. The final photograph appears to have been taken from a boat, leaving or arriving at the U.S. Quarantine Wharf in the port of Tianjin, which was the main maritime gateway to Beijing. Tianjin was central in the conflict, since the Boxers cut the railway line between the port-city and Beijing in order to completely isolate the latter, making it difficult for the Eight-Nation Alliance to coordinate an organised attack.
War Office, Geographical Section, General Staff
Map of Nanking Compiled, drawn and printed at the War Office, 1927.
Publication War Office, Geographical Section, General Staff, 1927.
Description
Coloured lithograph map dissected into 32 (4 by 8) sections mounted on linen. Scale 1:250,000.
Dimensions 745 by 995mm (29.25 by 39.25 inches).
£3,500.00
General Staff map of Nanking
Nanking in 1927 was a treaty port located on the southern shores of the Yangtze River. Because the foreign interests in China were largely American and European, squadrons of foreign naval vessels were stationed along the Yangtze to protect their citizens doing business at the treaty ports. The British Royal Navy operated the China Station under Rear Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt and the United States Navy the Yangtze Patrol; both lasted for around 80 years until World War II.
League of Nations
Appeal by the Chinese Government. Report of the Commission of Enquiry... signed by the members of the commission on September 4th, 1932, at Peiping.
Publication Geneva, League of Nations, 1932.
Description
Folio (320 x 200mm), 148 pages, 14 maps on 13 folded leaves inserted in pocket attached to back cover.
£1,500.00
The Lytton Report
Known as the Mukden Incident, the detonation of dynamite along part of the South Manchuria Railway by a member of the 29th Japanese Regiment in 1931 allowed Japan to accuse Chinese dissidents of the attack, and gave them an excuse to launch a full invasion of Manchuria. Japan quickly occupied key Manchurian cities, in response to which China appealed for help from the world’s powers. The Council of the League of Nations, supported by the United States, sought to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict.
In January 1932, the Council dispatched an inquiry commission to China under the leadership of British diplomat, Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton. By the time the so-called Lytton Commission arrived in China in the April, the Japanese army had already established the Manchurian puppet state of Manchukuo. Five months later, the Lytton Commission issued its report, on the advice of which, the League of Nations refused to recognise Manchukuo as a legitimate state and proposed measures to re-establish Chinese control of the region. Naturally, China accepted the League of Nations’ recommendations for restoring peace; Japan did not and withdrew from the League in 1935.
Are in the Lytton Commission, of which the present book is an example, discusses recent events, issues between Japan and China, the situation in Shanghai and Manchukuo, economic interests, and the conditions for a settlement, as well as offering various recommendations to the Council. A number of maps illustrate the political standing of Manchuria, including its railroads, the military situation at various dates from September 1931 to August 1932, and the routes taken in China by the Commission. The report is in the archives of the League, which were transferred to the United Nations in 1946 and are housed at the UN office in Geneva. They were inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2010.
The fourteen maps included in the report are: (1) ‘China and Japan’; (2) ‘Political Map of Manchuria’; (3) ‘Railway Map of Manchuria’; (4) ‘Relief Map of Manchuria’; (5) ‘Military Situation in Manchuria before September 18th, 1931’; (6) ‘Chart of the Mukden Incident (September 18th-19th, 1931)’; (7) ‘Military Situation in Manchuria about September 30th, 1931’; (8) ‘Military Situation in Manchuria about December 10th, 1931’; (9) ‘Military Situation in Manchuria about May 1st, 1932’; (10) ‘Military Situation in Manchuria about August 20th, 1932’; (11) ‘City of Shanghai’; (12) ‘Shanghai Area’; (13) ‘Principal Route Map Showing Itineraries of the Commission in the Far East’; (14) ‘Supplementary Route Map Showing Itineraries of the Commission in the Far East’.
Anonymous
[Manuscript map of Shanghai].
Publication [Shanghai], c1862.
Description
Coloured military manuscript map in brown, red and green ink and wash colour, three red seals of the “Ever-Victorious Army”, minor loss due to folding. The map is backed with thin paper.
Dimensions 1175 by 1615mm (46.25 by 63.5 inches).
References
Laffer, Stephanie. ‘Gordon’s Ghosts: British Major-General Charles George Gordon and His Legacies, 1885-1960’. PhD thesis, Florida State University, 2010.
£120,000.00
Used by the “Ever-Victorious Army” of the Qing Dynasty
A Chinese military manuscript map depicting the mouth of the Yangzi River 扬子江, showing the cities Zhenjiang 镇江, Changzhou 常州, Suzhou 苏州, and Shanghai 上海. Thousands of houses with red flags are shown, with the names of military units written in Chinese. Mountains are depicted pictorially and shaded in green. Most prominently marked are the prefectures, which are emphatically circled and shaded in red. In particular, the Suzhou prefecture and many other administrative units are conspicuously shown in the largest square at the centre of the map. Barracks can be identified by names ending with “ying” “营”, marked with red rectangles at various positions on the map. For example, Suzhou ying “苏州营” is directly below the prominent Suzhou prefecture. An inset plan in the lower left corner shows an overview of this map on a grid. The left side of the grid is labelled with the scale “每方二十里” (lit. “every square is measured by twenty li”), approximately 1 : 10000 meters. The three identical red seals on the map stand as signs of authority and authenticity, as well as indicating the history and function of the map. The characters in the seal read vertically from right to left: Yingguo hui dai changshengjun guanfang “英國會帶常勝軍關防” (“the seal of the Ever Victorious Army under the British command”). The final two characters (Guanfang 關防, literal meaning “border control”) refer to a type of seal that was unique to military use. The most critical information contained on the map lies in the preceding three characters: changshengjun “常勝軍”. They refer to “The Ever Victorious Army”, formed in the late Qing dynasty to fight against the rebels of the civil war, known as the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping Rebellion was a source of radical religious and political upheaval in China from 1850 to 1864, as the heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814-1864) led the Taiping army against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. The army initially pressed north into Hunan 湖 南 following the Xiang River 湘江, besieging Changsha 长沙, Yuezhou 岳 州, and Wuchang 武昌after reaching the Yangtze River 扬子江 in 1852. By 1860, the Taiping forces defeated the imperial troops and captured Nanjing 南京. This victory was followed by a successful invasion of southern Jiangsu 江 苏 and Zhejiang 浙江 provinces, as well as the wealthy cities of Hangzhou 杭 州, Changzhou 常州 and Suzhou 苏州. With the capture of Suzhou in June, 1860, Shanghai was faced with a deadly menace, and only a month later, the Taiping rebels attacked the city.
At this juncture, The Ever Victorious Army held off rebel attacks on Shanghai and helped to defend other treaty ports, such as Ningbo 宁波, aiding imperial troops in reconquering Taiping strongholds along the Yangtze River. The Army had been founded in 1861 as a conglomeration of French, Indian, and Chinese troops serving the Emperor. A New England (American) shipmaster, Frederick Townsend Ward (1831-1862) was commissioned to lead the Army. Ward introduced radical ideas involving force structure, training, discipline, and weaponry, and led his troops in many engagements against the Taiping and was killed in action near Ningbo 宁波 in 1862.
Shortly after Ward’s death, the command of the Army was passed to Charles George Gordon (1833-1885), famously known as “Chinese Gordon”. Under Gordon, the Ever Victorious Army collaborated with the Chinese Imperial forces to bring the Taiping Rebellion to an end, with several decisive battles. This narrative corresponds precisely with the first characters on the seal: yingguo “英國” (Britain) hui dai “會帶” (unify and lead) changshengjun “常勝軍” (The Ever Victorious Army). Evidently, the map was commissioned under Gordon’s command of the Ever Victorious Army.
“Chinese” Gordon.
Gordon was part of the joint Anglo-French embassy sent to China in July 1860 to impel the imperial government to ratify the Treaty of Tianjin. By the time Gordon reached China, the country was in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion. As a member of the Royal Engineers, he was tasked with constructing new living quarters for the troops who were left behind at Tianjin to enforce the now-ratified treaty.
After his time at Tianjin, Gordon was sent to Shanghai, where he was in charge of the detachment of Engineers who fought in the Taiping Rebellion during 1863. With the advancing rebels threatening the tenuous peace and economic stability achieved by the treaty, Gordon undertook a further overhaul of the army. He introduced discipline, standardised pay and uniforms among his ranks, and established authority in front of his soldiers, creating a powerful unified fighting force. He proved an invaluable leader, and promised to rid China of the Taiping rebels within eighteen months. Indeed, his military improvements led to a series of victories. By the end of April 1863, the Army had won several battles and reclaimed many cities and towns, until only Suzhou and Changzhou remained rebel strongholds. After a two-month siege organised by Gordon, Suzhou was captured, and he led the victorious army into Changzhou. China was under control of the Imperial Emperor once more.
GORDON, Lieutenant Colonel Charles George
Military Plan of the country around Shanghai From surveys made in 1862. 63. 64. 65.
Publication London, Edward Stanford, 6, Charing Cross, 1865.
Description Lithograph map, hand-coloured, dissected and mounted on linen, folding into a red cloth slip case.
Dimensions 690 by 510mm (27.25 by 20 inches).
References Mossman, S., General Gordon’s Private Diary of his Exploits in China; amplified by Samuel Mossman, London, p. 208-209.
£9,000.00
Map of Shanghai, China, and vicinity by “Chinese Gordon”
The earliest serious British attempt to map the area around Shanghai, China. Surveyed by “Chinese Gordon” during the Taiping Rebellion. An extremely rare first edition of this large double-page zincographed map depicting Shanghai and its her enivrons. The map, by British military officer Charles George Gordon (or “Chinese Gordon”), covers from the mouth of the Yangtze River south to the Tsien Tan River (Fushun River), Hangchao (Hangzhou), and from Ching Keang (Zhenjiang) to the Tunsha Banks, including all of the country in between, the Grand Canal, Shanghai, Soo Chow (Suzhou), Tai-Hu Lake (Tai Lake), and Hoo Chow (Huzhou).
The map was produced by Gordon whilst he was leading the Qing “Ever Victorious Army” against the Taiping rebels between 1862 and 1865. The manuscript plan drafted by Lieutenant Colonel Charles George Gordon and his Chinese assistants apparently covered an area of over 80 square metres. Following the defeat of the Taiping Rebellion in 1864, the map was zincographed at the Topographical Department of the War Office in Southampton, then under the direction of Colonel Henry James. This enormous map was, in turn, reissued in the same year, the present example, on a reduced scale by Edward Stanford. Although the British had been present in this area for some time, Gordon’s map, surveyed to facilitate his campaigns during the rebellion, represents the first focused British survey of the Shanghai region.
Gordon would go on to be highly decorated by both the Chinese and British authorities, he would later enter the service of the Khedive of Egypt, and would become the Governor General of the Sudan, where he did much to suppress revolts and the local slave trade. He returned to Europe in 1880.
A serious revolt then broke out in the Sudan, led by a Muslim religious leader and self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. In early 1884 Gordon had been sent to Khartoum with instructions to secure the evacuation of loyal soldiers and civilians and to depart with them. In defiance of those instructions, after evacuating about 2,500 civilians he retained a smaller group of soldiers and non-military men. In the build up to battle, the two leaders corresponded, each attempting to convert the other to his faith, but neither would accede.
Besieged by the Mahdi’s forces, Gordon organised a citywide defence lasting almost a year that gained him the admiration of the British public, but not of the government, which had wished him not to become entrenched. Only when public pressure to act had become irresistible did the government, with reluctance, send a relief force. It arrived two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed.
Rare. We are only aware of one copy sold at Sotheby’s in October 1967.
WATERS, Thomas J.
Map of the Country around Shanghai compiled from the best authorities with numerous additions from actual survey.
Publication [?Shanghai], 1880.
Description
Lithographed map, dissected and laid down on linen in 24 sections, with contemporary hand-colour in full; preserved in original publisher’s green cloth slipcase.
Dimensions
865 by 965mm (34 by 38 inches).
£6,500.00
Big-Game Hunting in and around Shanghai
Compiled by Thomas Waters (1842-1898), “expressly for Sportsmen” (slipcase label). Waters was an Irish civil engineer and architect who carved out a successful early career in Japan, designing the Imperial Mint in Osaka and the headquarters for the Imperial Japanese Army. He worked briefly in Shanghai in the 1880s, before going out to Colorado to join his brothers in silver and gold mining.
This map also appeared in cyanotype, probably originally drawn up as part of Waters’s bid for the commission to construct a new waterworks in Shanghai. Waters was a strong contender in the competition, as he had experience in the field: he was partially responsible for the construction of Japan’s first sewer system.
Rare: OCLC locates only two institutional examples, those in the BnF and University of Chicago.
WADE, Henling Thomas; and Robert Alexis de VILLARD
Map of the Shooting Districts Lying Between Shanghai & Wuhu Compiled and Carefully revised by H.T. Wade and R.A. de Villard.
Publication Shanghai, October, 1893.
Description
Engraved map with original hand-colour, mounted on linen and folding in original brown cloth covers.
Dimensions 682 by 1080mm (26.75 by 42.5 inches).
£5,500.00
The author’s copy of the plan of Shanghai
Large and detailed plan of Shanghai, and surroundings.
The map stretches west to east from modern day Tongling to Shanghai, and north to south from Nanjing to Hangzhou. The major districts and provinces are marked in English and Chinese. Also marked upon the plan are cities, towns, villages, marshes, swamps, bridges, pagodas, hills, boundary provinces, canals, and the sea wall. To the upper left are profiles of the stone bridge and the city walls of Soochow (Suzhou).
The map was produced to aid the consumate gentleman to find suitable areas around Shanghai to shoot game. Hence, as well as the labelling of geographical and man-made features, the map is replete with phrases such as “good shoot low rolling hills”, “reported good shooting country”, and to the far left of the map, “country to be explored by future sportsmen”. Pasted onto the inside cover is a 13 page distance table, giving distances in English miles and Chinese Li.
The map was made by Robert Alexis de Villard, an artist and customs official who spent the majority of his career in the foreign concessions of Shangai, and Henling Thomas Wade, who was born in the city and was an extremely well-known member of the international community there. In a box in the lower left-hand corner the number of the map is given, in this case 462, and it is signed by both Wade and Villard. It is likely that the map had a print run of 500, with examples given out by the makers to hunting enthusiasts within tight-knit expatriate community in Shanghai.
Scale: 7.5 statute miles to 1 inch.
Robert Alexis de Villard, signature to title page.
MANN, Fred and Helen
Map of the Shooting Districts lying between Hangchow - NankingWuhu and Shanghai compiled from the latest authorities with numerous additions 1885-5-6, 1898, 19012-3-4. By the late Fred Mann... Railways open and projected and the names of principal towns, romanised according to the revised regulations of the Imperial Chinese Post Office, Names in Chinese, Characters in the Madarin Dialect By Helen Mann 1909.
Publication [Shanghai], 1909.
Description
Lithograph map, printed in colours, mounted on linen, folding into original blue cloth boards, lettered in gilt to upper cover, minor loss to old folds.
Dimensions 750 by 1200mm (29.5 by 47.25 inches).
£5,500.00
Mann’s shooting map of Shanghai and her environs
Large and detailed plan of Shanghai, and surroundings.
The map was produced to aid the consumate gentleman find suitable areas around Shanghai to shoot game. Hence, as well as the labelling of geographical and man-made features, the map is replete with phrases such as “first rate shooting country”, “good shooting along these greens”, and “rolling hills good shoot”.
The map stretches from west to east from modern day Tongling to Shanghai, and north to south from Nanjing to Hangzhou. The major districts and provinces are marked in English and Chinese. Also marked upon the plan are railway lines open and under construction or projected, cities, towns, villages, swamps, pagodas, hills, boundary provinces, creeks, and canals. Below the key is a note regarding the famous Hangzhou Bore, and to the upper right is a tide table for Shanghai.
Gother Frederick Mann (1817-81), a Major General in the Royal Engineers, served in Trinidad in 1847-50 and China 1857-61, retiring on full pay in 1874.
[Anonymous]
Map of Shanghai Published by the North-China Daily News & Herald. Limited. by permission of the Municipal Council.
A large English map of Shanghai, dissected in 40 (4 by 10) sections and mounted on linen, folding map. Oriented with north towards the upper right. Top left includes an inset of “plan shewing the rubicon road system”. Signed by Engineer and Surveyor.
Dimensions 735 by 1510mm (29 by 59.5 inches).
£20,000.00
Map of Shanghai, 1913
The North-China Daily News was an English-language newspaper in Shanghai, China, the most influential foreign newspaper of its time. The paper was founded as the weekly North-China Herald (北華捷報) and was first published on 3 August 1850. Its founder, British auctioneer Henry Shearman (奚安門), died in 1856.
[Anonymous]
Plan of Shanghai 1928 Published under authority of the Municipal Council 1928.
Publication
London, Standford’s Geog.l Establishment, London, 21st April 1928.
Description
Lithographed map, printed in colours, dissected and mounted on linen.
Dimensions 880 by 1660mm (34.75 by 65.25 inches).
£15,000.00
Plan of Shanghai, 1928
The map depicts Shanghai city in 1928, with the French Settlements and Shanghai International Settlements hand-coloured in outline in brown and pink. Two lines below the title note that:
1. The Pootung shore is taken from surveys by the Whangpoo Conservancy Board.
2. The French settlement is taken from surveys by the French Municipal Council.
The famous Whangpoo (Huangpu) river in Shanghai is prominently shown from the midpoint of the bottom edge sinuating upwards to the top right corner, which divides the settlements to the left and Pootung (Pudong) to the right. Between the bank of the river and the French settlement, are the “Chinese city” and a district labeled “Nan Tao” (Nan Dao).
The “Chinese city”, is now called the “Old City”, the traditional urban core of Shanghai. Its boundary was formerly defined by a defensive wall. The Old City was the county seat for the old county of Shanghai, with the advent of foreign concessions in Shanghai, it became just one part of Shanghai’s urban core but continued for decades to be the seat of the Chinese authority in Shanghai. It was essentially coterminous with the old Nanshi DistrictNan Dao, which is now part of Huangpu District.
In 1927, in a bid to establish a tangible Chinese authority in Shanghai, the Republic of China government established the Special Municipality of Shanghai. The municipal government was moved out of the Old City to near Xujiahui. In 1928, Shanghai City (the Old City) was reduced to district status under the Special Municipality. In 1930, Shanghai County became a separate parallel administrative unit to the Special Municipality, and the county government was moved out to Minhang. This was the end of the Old City’s role as the seat of government of Shanghai.
From 1928, the Old City was Hunan District; “Hunan” literally meant “southern Shanghai”.
An exact copy of the map dated to the same day 21st April 1928, was published in Shanghai, North-China Daily News and Herald, Limited. by permission of the Municipal. It is signed by the same commissioner of public works. We are only aware of a single surviving example, that in the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C.
Publisher
Edward Stanford (1827-1904) rose to prominence during the height of the Victorian age, a period defined by technological innovation, social upheaval, literary excellence and world exploration. In 1853, Stanford became a sole proprietor and expanded his shop to 7 and 8 Charing Cross whilst acquiring premises on Trinity Place for a printing works. This solidified Stanford’s as the largest and only map maker and seller in London at a time when British colonialism, the rise of the railways, and the continuing popularity of the Grand Tour.
Edward Stanford II took over in 1882, when Stanford’s had become the sole agents for Ordnance Survey Maps in England and Wales, and in 1887 published ‘Stanford’s London Atlas Of Universal Geography’ dedicated to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Royal Jubilee, and he received his royal warrant as Cartographer to the Queen, in 1893. Edward Stanford II died in 1917 and his son Edward Fraser Stanford assumed control of the business in 1917. This map was made in the succeeding period between the wars, which saw the company continue to innovate and encourage exploration.
Shanghai Sewers
[Anonymous]
Plan of Shanghai Published under authority of the Municipal Council 1928.
Publication
London, Standford’s Geog.l Estab.t, 21st April 1928.
Description
Lithographed map, printed in colours, dissected and mounted on linen, folding into maroon calf covers, lettered in gilt, with six sheet of notes charting the career progression of Noel William Bailey Clarke M. Eng, M. Inst C. E., together with a contemporary photograph , tipped onto thin card and presented in a contemporary card wallet.
Dimensions 875 by 1660mm (34.5 by 65.25 inches).
£15,000.00
The map depicts Shanghai city in 1928, with the French Settlements and Shanghai International Settlements hand-coloured in outline in brown and pink. Two lines noted below the title:
1. The Pootung shore is taken from surveys by the Whangpoo Conservancy Board.
2. The French settlement is taken from surveys by the French Municipal Council.
The current example was owned by Noel Bailey Clarke a civil engineer who worked on the engineering staff of the Public Works Department of the Shanghai Municipal Council. He was particularly responsible for wharves, river walls, underground sewage pumping stations, sewage purification plants, incinerators and public swimming baths. He rose to become the President of the Engineering Society of China and served as Vice-Chairman of the Shanghai Association of the (British) Institution of Civil Engineers.
The two-line key printed in the bottom right corner of the plan relates to drainage and canals and is hand-coloured on the main plan in green and dark blue. This would only be of use to an engineer responsible for drainage and sewage and is indicative that this map is a personalised and possibly unique variant made for Noel Bailey Clarke’s sole use. This hypothesis is strengthened by Noel William Bailey Clarke’s most comprehensive publication being entitled ‘Buried Pipelined: A Manual of Structural Design and Installation’. It would make sense that, with this being his speciality, his focus in Shanghai would have related to drainage and as such the plan may have been specially customised for his use.
Publisher
Edward Stanford (1827-1904) rose to prominence during the height of the Victorian age a period defined by technological innovation, social upheaval, literary excellence and world exploration. In 1853, Stanford became sole proprietor and expanded his shop to 7 and 8 Charing Cross whilst acquiring premises on Trinity Place for a printing works. This solidified Stanford’s as the largest and only map maker and seller in London at a time when British colonialism, the rise of the railways, and the continuing popularity of the Grand Tour.
Edward Stanford II took over in 1882, when Stanford’s had become the sole agents for Ordnance Survey Maps in England and Wales, and in 1887 published Stanford’s London Atlas Of Universal Geography dedicated to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Royal Jubilee, and he received his royal warrant as Cartographer to the Queen, in 1893. Edward Stanford II died in 1917 and his son Edward Fraser Stanford assumed control of the business in 1917. This map was made in the succeeding period between the wars, which saw the company continue to innovate and encourage exploration.
Cafe, Restaurant & Night Club.
Publication Shanghai, The Globe Advertising Agency, 1930s.
Description Lithograph folding map.
Dimensions
381 by 355mm (15 by 14 inches).
£800.00
Allied Armed Forces Guide to Shanghai
A rare plan showing the central district in the French Settlement in Shanghai, published in 1930s, as a guide for the Allied Armed Forces. Important and entertaining land marks including department stores, banks, apartments, hotels and churches are represented pictorially on the map, these are also numbered, which are listed on the reverse of the map.
The plan prominently depicts the most popular streets in Shanghai in 1930s.
Bubbling Well Road (now West Nanjing Road) shown in the upper section was incorporated into the Settlement in 1899. In 1919 it was the “prettiest road in Shanghai”. Early residents of what became the International Settlement used to walk out for recreation along Bubbling Well Road to the Jing’an Temple. A department store named Sun Sun Co. Ltd advertised in the centre below the map is situated on this road.
Avenue Joffre (now Huaihai Road) was mostly lined with large houses and modern mansion blocks. In the 1920s Avenue Joffre became an enclave of a large community of Russians fleeing the Communist revolution in their homeland, which led to the middle section of the street becoming a commercial centre, lined with European-style shops, cafes and restaurants. Hence the title of the map, and in particular below the title it reads: Russian Cuisine in its best presentation.
General Plan of Shanghai 1933
[Anonymous]
Plan of Shanghai & Environs Published Under Authority of the Municipal Council. 1933.
Publication Shanghai, Shanghai Municipal Council, 27th October 1932.
Description
Coloured lithograph map, dissected and laid on linen, early ownership stamp of “John Pook & Co.” in blank area, folding into original cloth portfolio, lettered in gilt “General Map of Shanghai 1933” on spine. Acknowledgement is made of information obtained from the French Municipal Council, the Shanghai City Government, and the Whangpoo Conservancy Board.
Dimensions 860 by 1744mm (33.75 by 68.75 inches).
References
BL: Cartographic Items Maps X.3743.
£25,000.00
The map depicts Shanghai city in 1933, however, the date printed on the bottom right corner is 27th October 1932. The round shape of the Old city is still clearly visible as in the Plan of Shanghai printed in 1928, it is labelled the “Chinese City” Similarly, immediately to the north, east and west is the French Concession, and further to the north is the International Settlement. It is printed with a legend, which includes: villages and developed property; creek; motor road; path and roads; and important buildings. Compared with the Plan of Shanghai printed in 1928, this map has much more information added, most notably is that more villages and developed property are marked and identified using the relevant legend.
We are only able to trace one other example of this map, that in the British Library Map Collection.
SHAO, Cheng, KE Lang
New Map of Shanghai.
Publication Shanghai, The East Asia Geographical Institute, 1945 [but 1940].
Description Coloured lithograph.
Dimensions
535 by 750mm (21 by 29.5 inches).
£1,500.00
1940 Plan of Shanghai
Detailed map of Shanghai, first printed in the International Settlement in 1940, following the Japanese invasion, before the Imperial Japanese Army entered and occupied the British and American controlled parts of the city in 1941.
The International Settlement and French Concession are coloured in pink, and denoted as “The Special District” in red block lettering. The areas around these two zones are shown in yellow. Roads, parks, cemeteries, schools, and important municipal buildings, such as police stations and hospitals are labelled. Sports fields, the race track, and certain bookstores are also located. Tramways and bus routes are depicted.
The map features four insets: the “native city”, which is located just outside of the concessions; the Central District and the Bund, “Shanghai Central of Municipal District”; and the Western District Extension.
The first edition of the map was published in July of 1940, then reissued in 1945. This example is the 1945 edition but bears the 1940 date, with have an updated date on the binder.
HEYWOOD, Captain P[eter]
The Typa and Harbour of Macao.
Publication
London, Laurie & Whittle, Sept. 12th 1809.
Description Double-page engraved chart, three tears skilfully repaired.
Dimensions
705 by 565mm (27.75 by 22.25 inches).
£9,000
Captain Heywood’s chart of Macau
The only extant first edition of Captain Peter Heywood’s survey of Macau (Macao) and Taipa. The most important survey of the waters, since Captain Bligh’s (of Bounty Mutiny fame) chart of 1778-1779.
The chart covers Macau’s inner harbor and isthmus, together with Colane and Dahengqin Islands. Though the focal point of the chart is Taipa (Typa) Island, which was used by the East Indian Company as an anchorage point for ships en route to Canton (Guangzhou). “The Typa” (Taipa) refers to both the island, here labelled Kaikong, and the passage between it and Mackkareenra Island, today part of Hengqin. The chart provides numerous soundings, and illustrates in detail the route from Macao’s inner harbor through the narrow channel between Mackkareera and Typa Ka Brado (Kaikong). It also shows the best route in order to avoid the two large rocks that plagued ships navigating into Macao Harbor, Pedra Meo and Pedra Areeka. It also notes the ‘Best Track in and out,’ not to Macao, but to EIC anchorage points in the Typa.
The survey was carried out by Captain Heywood (1772-1831), in 1804, whilst his ship the HMS ‘La Dedaigneuse’ had put in for repairs in Macau, having lost it’s mast during a typhoon. The survey would remain unpublished until 1809, when the chart was engraved by Benjamin Smith and published by Laurie and Whittle.
The published chart shows Heywood’s considerable skills as a surveyor, who was evidently well tutored by Captain Bligh when he served under him as midshipman on HMS ‘Bounty’. Indeed he was mentioned by Bligh, along with Fletcher Christian as officers of great promise, before both became complicit in the mutiny. During the famous mutiny his behaviour was ambiguous. Despite his own claims to being asleep when it happened, he knew of Fletcher Christian’s plans to desert and did not show himself sufficiently loyal to Bligh to avoid later trial. He did not wish to join Bligh when the latter was cast adrift in the over-crowded ship’s launch and, with the loyalists for whom there was also no room, went to Tahiti with the ship. They remained there when the hard core of mutineers sought remoter refuge in the ‘Bounty’, eventually on Pitcairn Island. On the arrival of the pursuing frigate ‘Pandora’, Heywood immediately joined her but – with the rest of those that Captain Edwards swept up on Tahiti – he was brutally and indiscriminately treated as a mutineer. Four of the group, unable to escape in time from “Pandora’s box” – the special cell on deck in which they were confined - were drowned when ‘Pandora’ was herself wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. In 1792 the survivors were tried by court-martial at Spithead and Heywood was condemned to death. He was, however, well defended and well-connected, and obtained a Royal Pardon through the interest of Lord Chatham and was reinstated in his career. In the early 1800s he was stationed out in the Far East, and was responsible for several notable surveys. He would later be stationed in South America and Mediterranean, where he carried out numerous further surveys.
Heywood’s surveying work was held in such high esteem that in 1818 he was offered the position as Admiralty Hydrographer; he declined with the position being filled by the renowned Francis Beaufort. In 1830, his step daughter Diana would marry Captain Edward Belcher, who would continue the fine surveying tradition of his father-in-law, with the surveying of Hong Kong in 1843.
HORSBURGH, James
To Chas Marjoribanks Esqre and the other Members of the Honble East India Company’s Factory at Canton. This Chart of Choo Keang or Canton River, Is Inscribed by Their Obedient Servant, Jas Horsburgh.
Publication London, James Horsburgh, July 1831 corrections to 1841.
Description
Engraved chart, hand-colour in part, dissected and mounted on linen, housed in original brown cloth slipcase.
Dimensions 1000 by 675mm (39.25 by 26.5 inches).
References
The Hong Kong Maritime Museum, ‘Charting the Pearl River Delta’, Hong Kong, 2006.
£20,000.00
Horsburgh’s chart of the Pearl River
Delta
James Horsburgh’s rare chart of the Pearl River Delta. The chart stretches north to south from Canton (Guangzhou) to Canzhou Island, and west to east from Dashi Bay to Hong Kong. The chart was first published by James Horsburgh in 1831, and the present edition has been corrected and updated to 1841. Place names are now written in Chinese characters, as well as in English; to the lower left has been added an inset chart of the Bay of Cum-Sing-Moon, from a survey by Captain Rees in 1833; the islands in the lower right have been renamed, for example “Young-Hoy” has become “Yung-Gae”, with five new bearing lines marking sea hazards appearing. The extensive descriptive text remains unaltered.
James Horsburgh (1762-1836) hydrographer to the East India Company, the foremost surveyor of Chinese waters of his day, was born and raised in the coastal town of Elie in the county of Fife. At the age of 16 he entered the naval profession as a humble cabin boy. He spent the majority of his formative years out in the Far East. On a return trip to London, in 1786, as first mate of the ship Carron, he made the acquaintance of Alexander Dalrymple, hydrographer to the East India Company and the British Admiralty. So impressed with Horsburgh’s work was Dalrymple, that he undertook to publish the charts and sailing directions that he had compiled. Horsburgh would later return to England on a permanent basis in 1805, were he would publish his East India Pilot, a work containing fifteen charts, which he produced between 1805 and 1815, and covered the navigation from England to the China Sea. It was these charts, together with his comprehensive ‘Directory for Sailing to the East Indies’, that would gain Horsburgh the position of Hydrographer to the East India Company in 1810; a post he would hold until his death in 1836.
Rare: we have been unable to trace an institutional example of the 1841 chart. OCLC records one institutional example of the chart, dated 1831, at Harvard, and one, dated 1847, at the University of Winsconsin. The chart is not recorded in ‘Charting the Pearl River Delta’, published by the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, in 2006.
HALL, Admiral Sir William Hutcheon
Canton River and adjacent islands from the latest surveys.
Publication [London], H. Colburn, 13 Grt. Marlborough Street, 1845.
Description
Lithograph map with original hand-colour in outline, with one inset map, manuscript pencil inscription to margin.
Dimensions 388 by 412mm (15.25 by 16.25 inches).
£1,200.00
A map of Canton and Hong Kong by “Nemesis Hall”
A rare map showing the Canton region, including Hong Kong Island, Lantau and Macao.
In 1839, William Hutcheon Hall obtained command of an East Indiaman called the Nemesis, on board which he served in the First AngloChinese War. The ship’s first engagement was in the Second Battle of Chuenpi in early 1841, which resulted in a resounding British victory. Along with his other naval achievements, this triumph won the captain the nickname of “Nemesis Hall” and he was promoted to the rank of Captain at the end of the war in 1842, when Hong Kong was ceded to Britain. Hall kept copious notes about his experiences in China, which were later used by Oxford graduate William Dallas Bernard to write an account of the war, entitled ‘Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843’ (1844).
The present map is found in the second edition of Bernard’s book, published in 1845. Engraved by a little-known craftsman named Isaac Purdy, it is based on earlier surveys by Captains Horsburgh, Ross and Belcher of the British Admiralty, and updated with information gleaned from Hall’s journals. It shows Hong Kong Island, Lantau, Macao and numerous other islands, forts and settlements along what was then known as the Canton River, and is now more commonly called the Pearl River. The map also identifies the anchorages used by British ships in the nineteenth century, and the more detailed inset shows the position of Her Majesty’s squadron off the coast of Hanan Island in 1841.
BELCHER, Captain
Hong Kong surveyed by Capt. Sir Edward Belcher. in H.M.S. Sulphur 1841.
Publication
London, Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty, May 1st, 1843 - Corrected to 1846.
Description Engraved chart.
Dimensions
700 by 1020mm (27.5 by 40.25 inches).
£20,000.00
First British Survey of Hong Kong
The British Hydrographic Office was founded in 1795 by George III, who appointed Alexander Dalrymple as the first Hydrographer to the Admiralty. The first charts were produced in 1800. Unlike the U. S. Coast Survey, the Hydrographic Office was given permission to sell charts to the public and they produced a great number of sea charts covering every corner of the globe. Most of the Admiralty charts produced by the Hydrographic Office delineated coastline as well as high and low water marks and record depth of water as established by soundings. In addition, these charts included information on shoals, reefs, and other navigational hazards that plagued mariners across the world. Thanks to the innovations of Sir Francis Beaufort, who developed the Beaufort Scale of wind strength, the British Hydrographic Office became one of the leading producers of sea charts.
The mapmaker Sir Edward Belcher (1799-1877) was a surveyor for the Hydrographic office, and published his ‘Narrative of a Voyage round the World’ performed in HMS ‘Sulphur’ during the years 1836-1842 after his involvement in the First China War and the capture of Hong Kong. He rose steadily through the officer class and became admiral in 1872.
BELCHER, Admiral Sir Edward
Mer de Chine. Plan de L’ile de Hong-Kong d’après les travaux du Cape Sir Ed. Belcher de la Marine Anglais Corrigés en 1861.
Publication [Paris], Dépôt de la Marine, 1865.
Description
Lithograph chart, a few small tears to margins, library blindstamp lower right.
Dimensions 440 by 620mm (17.25 by 24.5 inches).
£25,000.00
Rare French Edition of Belcher’s chart of Hong Kong
A French chart of Hong Kong drawn after Captain Sir Edward Belcher’s seminal survey of 1841, the first systematic survey of Hong Kong harbour.
The present French chart is based on the Admiralty’s 1864 edition, which has been updated with the latest surveys carried out between 1857 to 1861. The most striking additions are to the Kowloon Peninsular, where the area is marked as ‘Cedee a la Grande Bretagne par le traite de 1860’ (ie The Convention of Peking). The latest constructions are marked, including a coal depot to the western coast; signalling the British Navy’s increasing dependence on coal to power their fleet.
Although the chart is somewhat reduced from Belcher’s original, it does cover a slightly wider area, with more of the Chinese coast and surrounding islands marked. The final amendment to Belcher’s chart is the use of metres for marking soundings and heights of mountains, rather than the British fathoms and feet.
It would appear that the 1865 edition was the only one published by the Depot de la Marine, as we are unable to locate any subsequent or earlier editions housed in institutions.
Rare: we are only able to trace two institutional examples of the present work: The British Library; and the Berlin State Library.
VOLONTERI, Simeone
Carte Topographique de l’île de Hong Kong dressee par Mgr. S. Volonteri de la Congregation des Missions Etrangeres de Milan Civ. Apoost du Ho-non (Chine) ancien Missionaire de Hong-Kong.
Publication Milan, Stab. Fratelli Tensi, January 2nd, 1874.
Description Lithograph map.
Dimensions
295 by 480mm (11.5 by 19 inches).
References
Ronald C.Y. Ng., ‘The San On Map of Mgr. Volonteri: On the Centenary of the Copy in the R.G.S. Collection‘, in ‘Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society’, Vol. 9 (1969), pp.141-148;.
£20,000.00
“The First Ever Bilingual Map of its Kind”
A rare map of Hong Kong, drawn by Monsignor Simeone Volonteri (18311904), during his ten-year residency in Hong Kong as a missionary.
Monsignor Simeone Volonteri (1831-1904) joined the Mission of the Propaganda in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong in 1860. He remained in Hong Kong until February 1870, leaving shortly after his appointment as Bishop of Honan. Volonteri is credited with two significant maps of Hong Kong, namely his Map of the San-On District, and the present map, ‘Carte Topographique de l’ile de Hong Kong’, published in 1866 and 1874 respectively. The latter appears to be a revised edition of the former, being more focused on Hong Kong and environs, with additional detail and new information, published with its own geographical text.
Volonteri worked in Hong Kong for ten years. He started the mission in Sai Kung, with plans to expand further into the mainland. With his health failing, he was advised to do more exercise and spent the next four years travelling the district, during which time he made a topographical survey and gathered geographical information, culminating in his map of the San-On District.
Volonteri’s work can be recognised as cornerstone for subsequent maps of Hong Kong, as it remained the most important cartographic representation of the region for the next 35 years, until the Survey of Hong Kong and the New Territories in 1901. Ng notes:
“Considering the difficulties presented by the rugged terrain and the unsettled times under which the observations were made, the map has a remarkable degree of accuracy and contains a wealth of information. Although it cannot be ascertained whether Mgr. Volonteri had received any cartographic training, either before or after he entered the priesthood, the map displays no sign of amateurism and, indeed, it won several enviable awards in various European exhibitions, including the Milan Cartographic Exhibition of 1894 in the years immediately following its appearance. Other things apart, the fact that it is probably the first ever bilingual map of its kind must place it in a class of its own”.
Published in 1866 Leipzig in an edition of 200 copies in English, the map was of great importance. So detailed was the map that it was used by the British authorities as important geographical reference material until after their lease of the New Territories and the Survey work on 1901. The map shows place names in both Roman and Chinese scripts. The boundary of the British colony of Hong Kong is shown in Kowloon; this peninsula had been added to the colony of Hong Kong in 1860. The Hong Kong Government immediately saw the value of this map, and publicized it by way of a notice in the Government Gazette on May 26, 1866.
This second map by Volonteri is scarcely recorded. Published several years after he left Hong Kong, it was printed in Milan by Stab. Fratelli Tensi in January 1874, for the Society for the Propogation of the Faith, in Volume 6 of Les Missions Catholiques. It was printed to accompany an article on the geography of Hong Kong written by Volonteri, who by that time had risen to become the Bishop of Honan.
There are clear differences between the two maps. The existence of the map was apparently unknown to scholars until the 1973 article “Another Volontieri Map?” was published in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, with the author noting “This map appears to be an individual production additional to the map of the San-On...”
By comparing the two maps, we can identify that more place names and buildings are added in the Victoria area on the present map: the Church, or Eglise de S. François, is added in the northernmost centre of the map; the Prison Anglais (English Prison) is shown on Ngong-shun-chau island, west of Kowloon.
The map is extremely rare. We are unable to find any other examples on the market in the past 30 years.
Hong Kong and the New Territories
SCHOOL OF MILITARY ENGINEERING, CHATHAM
Map of Hong Kong and New Leased Territory.
Publication
Chatham, School of Military Engineering, May, 1911.
Description
Folding colour printed lithographed map, dissected and laid down on linen.
Dimensions
765 by 1075mm (30 by 42.25 inches).
£15,000.00
This map of Hong Kong and the New Territories is one of the earliest maps to show the topography of Lantau Island and adjacent islands in detail. Hills are shown with contours and hachure shading, with heights given in feet, and villages are named. Cheung Chau, called “Chung Island”, is detailed, but Lamma appears to have been only partially surveyed. The “Mouth of the Canton (or Pearl) River” runs along the left margin. Mountains of interest include Lin tau (Lantau) Peak at 3064 feet, Victoria Peak at 1774 feet, Ma
On Shan at 2261 feet, and Tai Mo Shan at 3130 feet. Part of the new, singletrack Kowloon Canton Railway (which opened in 1910) is depicted between Tsim Sha Tsui and Sham Chun (Sum Chun).
This map is an early example of the topographical maps of areas of British political and commercial interest compiled by the Geographical Section, General Staff of the War Office throughout the twentieth century.
War Office, Geographical Section, General Staff
Map of Hong Kong and the Territory leased to Great Britain under the Convention between Great Britain and China, signed at Peking on the 9th of June 1898.
Publication Hong Kong, 1922.
Description
Colour lithographed map, dissected and mounted on linen, folding map.
Dimensions
745 by 990mm (29.25 by 39 inches).
£7,000.00
Hong Kong - the ailing Qing dynasty leased to Great Britain, 1898
An early, attractive, and detailed map of Hong Kong and the New Territories first published in 1905 and re-issued with additions in 1922. The coastline from Sai Kung to Mirs Point onwards was taken from Admiralty charts; that of Deep Bay, from the mouth of the Sham Chun River to South-West Point, from a survey by the P.W.D.; thence northward and westward from Admiralty charts; that of Lan Tao and adjacent islands from a 1-inch map compiled by Tate; and the New Territories from a map compiled by W. J. Newland in 1903-04, with additions and revisions by P.W.D. in 1913 and 1922.
As listed in the “Reference” table, the map shows “Important Villages & Market Places; Villages; Churches & Mission Stations; Pagodas & Temples; Pass; Heights in Feet above Sea Level; Bridges; Limit of Navigation for Large Junks; Cart Roads; Pack Roads & Paths; Telegraphs; Tramways; Boundary of British Territory; and Railways, the local spelling of place-names has been followed”.
This map has been compiled from “Existing Intelligence Division maps of Hong Kong; Admiralty Charts; Map of New Territory Kowloon, compiled by Mr. Tate for Colonial Government Survey 1899 – 1900; Survey of Kowloon and part of New Territory (8 In. – 1 Mile) carried out in 1902-1903 - The boundary along the Shores of Mirs Bay and Deep Bay is the High Water Mark. It has not yet been surveyed and is only shown provisionally - Geographical Section General Staff No. 1393. Additions, Mar. 1922, War Office, Aug. 1905”.
Scale 1:84,480 or ¾ Inch to 1 Mile.
HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE
China South East Coast. Hong Kong to the Brothers From various Admiralty Surveys between 1845 and 1925.
Publication London, Published at the Admiralty, New Edition 27th Dec., 1922. Small corrections to 1923.
Description
Engraved chart, including tidal information, compass roses, soundings, seabed notations, currents, sandbanks, shoals, lighthouses and beacons picked out in yellow and red, inland elevations and detailing, insets of Tai Sami and Goat Island.
Dimensions 710 by 1330mm (28 by 52.25 inches).
£900.00
Admiralty chart of the South East Coast of China
Detailed chart of the South East coast of China, , including tidal information, compass roses, soundings, seabed notations, currents, sandbanks, shoals, lighthouses and beacons picked out in yellow and red, inland elevations and detailing, insets of Tai Sami and Goat Island.
The British Hydrographic Office was founded in 1795 by George III, who appointed Alexander Dalrymple as the first Hydrographer to the Admiralty. The first charts were produced in 1800. Unlike the U. S. Coast Survey the Hydrographic Office was given permission to sell charts to the public and they produced a great number of sea charts covering every corner of the globe. Most of the Admiralty charts produced by the Hydrographic Office delineated coastline as well as high and low water marks and record depth of water as established by soundings. In addition these charts included information on shoals, reefs, and other navigational hazards that plagued mariners across the world. Thanks to the innovations of Sir Francis Beaufort, who developed the Beaufort Scale of wind strength, the British Hydrographic Office became one of the leading producers of sea charts. In fact, such was their accuracy that the phrase “Safe as an Admiralty Chart” was coined.
[SCHOOL OF MILITARY ENGINEERING, CHATHAM]
A Map of Hong Kong and New Leased Territory.
Publication [Chatham, School of Military Engineering, c1930].
Description
Lithograph map printed in colours, dissected and mounted on linen, ownership inscription “Property of V. J. Atkins”.
Dimensions 785 by 1065mm (31 by 42 inches).
£8,000.00
This map of Hong Kong and the New Territories is one of the earliest maps to show the topography of Lantau Island and adjacent islands in detail. Hills are shown with contours and hachure shading, with heights given in feet, and villages are named. Cheung Chau, called “Chung Island”, is detailed, but Lamma appears to have been only partially surveyed. The “Mouth of the Canton (or Pearl) River” runs along the left margin. Mountains of interest include Lin tau (Lantau) Peak at 3064 feet, Victoria Peak at 1774 feet, Ma On Shan at 2261 feet, and Tai Mo Shan at 3130 feet. Part of the new, singletrack Kowloon Canton Railway (which opened in 1910) is depicted between Tsim Sha Tsui and Sham Chun (Sum Chun).
A later edition of the New Territories map, first published around 1910 by the British School of Military Engineering in Chatham. Whereas the previous iterations of the map showed hachure and and contour lines, the present edition is produced without contour lines, though curiously the heights of peaks and countours have been kept. Also marked are roads, railways, and major built up areas. However, the most prominent buildings highlighted are the police stations of the New territories: ;none on Hong Kong Island.
There is a distinct lack of contour lines, but contour heights and summits remain, and the new territories split up into police districts.
This map is an early example of the topographical maps of areas of British political and commercial interest compiled by the Geographical Section, General Staff of the War Office throughout the twentieth century.
V. J. Atkins was on a passenger list for the ‘S.S. Macedonia’ leaving Hong Kong on the 7th May 1926, published in the ‘Malaya Tribune’. Atkins worked for the Asiatic Petroleum Company during the 1920s and 1930s.
[SANXING PRESS]
[The latest edition of the map of Hong Kong in full detail; with a map of Kowloon; for the use of all purposes].
Publication [Guangzhou, Sanxing Press, c1931].
Description
Chromolithograph plan, inset maps of Kowloon, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and the New Territories, some strengthening to folds, a few old repairs.
Dimensions 355 by 780mm (14 by 30.75 inches).
£5,000.00
Large plan of 1930s Hong Kong showing the cyclone scale
Fine and detailed plan of Victoria, Hong Kong.
The plan stretches west to east from Belcher’s Bay to North Point. All prominent public and private buildings are named and marked, as are tramways, streets, rivers, public telephone boxes, tracks, and the Mount Parker cable car. The Mount Parker Cable Car connected Quarry Gap (between Mount Parker and Mount Butler) and Quarry Bay near present day Yau Man Street. It was built to provide a means of transport for employees of the Swire Group between the staff quarters uphill, and Taikoo Dockyard and Taikoo Sugar Refinery downhill. It operated between 1892 and 1932.
To the lower right is a plan of Guangzhou. To the left is an inset plan of the New Territories marking lighthouses, towns, villages, railways, mountains, and borders. Next to this is a table of the Hong Kong cyclone scale, from 1 to 10, including both daytime symbols, and night-time warning lights. A system of cyclone warnings had been initiated by the Hong Kong Observatory in 1884. By 1917, the system consisted of seven levels, denoting severity, wind direction and proximity to Hong Kong. In 1931, the system was amended to a scale of 1 to 10 - as here - with three new signals added - signals 2 and 3 signifying strong winds from southwest and southeast respectively, and signal 4, a non-local signal meaning that a dangerous typhoon exists but poses no imminent danger to Hong Kong. The four gale signals, renumbered 5 to 8, also had their directions changed to the four quadrants, while the original signals 6 and 7 were renumbered 9 and 10. Signals 2, 3 and 4 were discontinued in the late 1930s. To the upper left is an inset plan of Kowloon, and to the sea are depicted 20 national flags: France, America, China, England, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Siam, Brazil, Switzerland, Spain, Japan, Norway, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Sweden, and Germany; denoting the numerous countries that traded through Hong Kong.
The plan would appear to have been somewhat of a success with later editions appearing throughout the 1930s. A slightly smaller example of around 1939, shows a new cyclone scale, and the number of flags has been reduced from 20 to 17.
Hong Kong after Japanese occupation
BRITISH WAR OFFICE
Hong Kong and the New Territories. North Sheet.
Publication [?London], War Office, Aug[ust] 1945.
Description
Chromolithograph map, with three insets and diagrams to right margin, browning and tears to left margin.
Dimensions
780 by 1050mm (30.75 by 41.25 inches).
£750.00
An important map of Hong Kong and the New Territories published by the British War Office in 1945.
Following the end of the First Opium War in 1942, China ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain and the island became a Crown Colony of the extensive Empire. Throughout the following decades, Britain guarded the territory closely, becoming increasingly concerned about the security of its port, which was essential for trade. The government therefore decided to create a buffer zone around the island to defend it against incursions from the nearby Chinese areas. The first part of this buffer was formed by Kowloon in 1860, when Britain took control of the peninsula in the aftermath of the Second Opium War. Further reinforcement came in 1898, when Britain gained a 99 year lease for 200 small islands surrounding Hong Kong, which were henceforth known as the “New Territories”. 86 years later, Margaret Thatcher agreed that Britain would return both Kowloon and Hong Kong, along with the New Territories, at the end of this period, as indeed happened in 1997.
This map, which shows Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, was first published by the British War Office in 1936. The present example, a second edition, was published shortly after the end of the Second World War, when Britain reoccupied the islands following four years of Japanese occupation. Thick red lines across the map indicate the “all weather roads” that could be relied upon for travel and communications across the region. Extending from Lantau Island to the west to Mirs Bay in the east, from the Chinese city of Shenzhen in the north to the southern Soko Islands, it is generally considered one of the most detailed maps of Hong Kong made in the early twentieth century.
Established in 1857, the British War Office was the governmental department responsible for the administration of the British Army until 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defense. During this time it produced many maps, with the number of publications increasing rapidly during years of conflict. The map of Hong Kong and the New Territories ran to three editions, and while the present example is to be found in institutions worldwide, it rarely appears at auction.
The liberation of Hong Kong from Japanese Occupation
BRITISH WAR OFFICE
Hong Kong and the New Territories. North Sheet.
Publication [London], War Office, Aug[ust] 1945.
Description
Chromolithograph map with manuscript annotations in pencil and pen, with three insets and diagrams to right margin, minor browning, a few nicks and tears to margins.
Dimensions 780 by 1050mm (30.75 by 41.25 inches).
£7,000.00
A unique map of Hong Kong and the New Territories, with contemporary manuscript annotations showing the liberation of Hong Kong from Japanese occupation.
This map, which shows Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, was first published by the British War Office in 1936. The present example, a second edition, was published shortly after the end of the Second World War, when Britain reoccupied the islands following four years of Japanese occupation. Thick red lines across the map indicate the “all weather roads” that could be relied upon for travel and communications across the region. Extending from Lantau Island to the west to Mirs Bay in the east, from the Chinese city of Shenzhen in the north to the southern Soko Islands, it is generally considered one of the most detailed maps of Hong Kong made in the early twentieth century.
The present example is made more interesting by the copious manuscript annotations that appear across the centre of the map. A grid has been drawn over Hong Kong in pencil, marking the lines of longitude and latitude more precisely. Discolouration indicates that it this lower central portion that was the primary focus of the map during its use. Annotations in pen identify features, such as “Dockyard Stores”, “Canal” and “Coal Dump”, and military information, including “Off[ice]rs Mess” and “2 AA Guns”. There are also numerous annotations listing the number of Japanese soldiers, in Victoria these include “3000 Japs”, together with a further 200 with horses, and the Japanese Officer’s Mess. Japanese troop numbers are noted on Kowloon totalling just under 2000 men. More annotations can be seen further north near modern day Shenzhen, marking the location of the Head Quarters for both the Hong Kong Artillery Force, and the Defence Force, as well as military companies and infantry divisions. A note in the upper right margin identifies it as the hand of “Capt Owen[s]”, an officer in the British Task Force that landed in Hong Kong on 30th August 1945, to take back control of the territory from the Japanese.
Established in 1857, the British War Office was the governmental department responsible for the administration of the British Army until 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defense. During this time it produced many maps, with the number of publications increasing rapidly during years of conflict.
Hong Kong after Japanese occupation
BRITISH WAR OFFICE
Hong Kong and the New Territories. North Sheet.
Publication [?London], War Office, Aug[ust] 1945.
Description
Chromolithograph map, with three insets and diagrams to right margin, browning and tears to left margin.
Dimensions 780 by 1050mm (30.75 by 41.25 inches).
£2,500.00
An important map of Hong Kong and the New Territories published by the British War Office in 1945.
Following the end of the First Opium War in 1942, China ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain and the island became a Crown Colony of the extensive Empire. Throughout the following decades, Britain guarded the territory closely, becoming increasingly concerned about the security of its port, which was essential for trade. The government therefore decided to create a buffer zone around the island to defend it against incursions from the nearby Chinese areas. The first part of this buffer was formed by Kowloon in 1860, when Britain took control of the peninsula in the aftermath of the Second Opium War. Further reinforcement came in 1898, when Britain gained a 99 year lease for 200 small islands surrounding Hong Kong, which were henceforth known as the “New Territories”. 86 years later, Margaret Thatcher agreed that Britain would return both Kowloon and Hong Kong, along with the New Territories, at the end of this period, as indeed happened in 1997.
This map, which shows Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, was first published by the British War Office in 1936. The present example, a second edition, was published shortly after the end of the Second World War, when Britain reoccupied the islands following four years of Japanese occupation. Thick red lines across the map indicate the “all weather roads” that could be relied upon for travel and communications across the region. Extending from Lantau Island to the west to Mirs Bay in the east, from the Chinese city of Shenzhen in the north to the southern Soko Islands, it is generally considered one of the most detailed maps of Hong Kong made in the early twentieth century.
Established in 1857, the British War Office was the governmental department responsible for the administration of the British Army until 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defense. During this time it produced many maps, with the number of publications increasing rapidly during years of conflict. The map of Hong Kong and the New Territories ran to three editions, and while the present example is to be found in institutions worldwide, it rarely appears at auction.
A tourist map of Hong Kong
PORT WELFARE COMMITTEE
The Seafarer’s “Chart” of Hong Kong This “chart” greets you with best wishes for a happy stay in this British Crown Colony.
Publication Hong Kong, Port Welfare Committee, [1950s].
Description
Lithographed folding map, printed in blue and black, guide to the city on verso.
Dimensions 1010 by 680mm (39.75 by 26.75 inches).
£250.00
A tourist map of Hong Kong produced by the Port Welfare Committee, an organisation set up to support seafarers in the city. On the back is a guide containing information on places of worship, public services and entertainment, with photographs of important buildings. On the map itself, dotted blue lines mark the paths of the ferries between the Kowloon and Hong Kong sides of the city, and the map key numbers and letters and place names are printed in blue as well. A blue square on the Hong Kong side outlines the area covered by the inset map at the top left hand corner. There is a photograph of the port on the upper cover.
ANONYMOUS
Taiwan neishan fanshe diyu quantu 臺灣內山番社地輿全圖 (Complete Map of Taiwan including the indigenous regions in the mountains).
Publication [Taiwan], 1888 (光緒十四年).
Description Lithograph, some staining along the folds, obscured red seal to the right.
Dimensions 970 by 2230mm (38.25 by 87.75 inches).
References
Teng, Emma. 2006. Taiwan’s imagined geography: Chinese colonial travel writing and pictures, 1683-1895. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Xu, Yuliang. 2019. Guang xu shi si nian(1888). Taiwan: Yuanzu wenhua.
£120,000.00
The first accurate map of the
Island of Taiwan
An extremely rare map of Taiwan made in 1888 at the culmination of two centuries of the Qing Dynasty (1684-1895). It is the first map to show the entire island with a high degree of accuracy and comprehensive geographical information; a feat that had never before been achieved.
The map is oriented to the East, extending north to south (left to right on the map) from Taipei fucheng 臺北府城 (Taipei provincial capital) to Hengchun xiancheng 恆春縣城 (Hengchun Township), and east to west from Hualiangang 花蓮港 (Port of Hualian) to Lugang 鹿港 (Lukang Township). The island is labelled with toponyms in Chinese. Relief is represented in elevation across the map, reflecting Taiwan’s mountainous terrain. In particular, the middle band of map shows densely packed mountain forms, representing the renowned ‘Central Mountain Range’, the principal mountain range which runs from the north to the south of the island.
As explained in the legend beneath the title to the far right of the map, place names are framed in different shapes to signify different governmental levels: Fu 府 (prefectures) and xian 縣 (districts) are represented in doublebordered squares; wenwu fenfang 文武分防 (literary and military bureaus) are shown in double-circle rings; fukenju 撫墾局 (local bureaus) and fanshe 番社 (villages) are represented by large and small circles respectively.
As the Qing Empire expanded, geographical knowledge about Taiwan, as one of its newly acquired lands, was crucial for strategic and administrative purposes. However, Qing maps of Taiwan made before 1879 depict only the western side of the island, while about three quarters of the island is dismissed. This is because the Central Mountain Range that divides the island is notoriously difficult to cross, effectively cutting off the eastern half of Taiwan. Taiwan was not officially recognised and incorporated into the imperial geography until the spring of 1684, during the reign of Emperor Kangxi.
In 1714-15, the Jesuits constructed the first attempt at a map of the entire island. This survey was part of the overall survey of the Qing empire carried out by French Jesuits at the behest of the Kangxi emperor. Employing European cartographic technology, and consulting Chinese geographic sources, three Jesuits travelled from the northern tip of Taiwan to the south in order to map the whole island. The Jesuits, however, still could not survey beyond the Central Mountain Range. Therefore, their survey depicts only the major landmarks on the western coastal plain, with the remainder fading off into empty space and leaving the eastern half of Taiwan a cartographic blank.
The first map to finally project a detailed image of eastern Taiwan was published in 1879 by Xia Xianlun 夏獻綸 in his ‘Taiwan yutu bingshuo’ 臺灣 輿圖並說 (Atlas of Taiwan with explanations). It was prompted by a policy implemented by the Qing in 1875, namely “Open the Mountains and Pacify the Savages” (kaishan fufan 開山撫番). This policy legalized the entry of Han Chinese settlers into the remaining indigenous territory of Taiwan. Xia’s map embodies the results of that policy, by showing the Central Mountain range no longer as an obstacle between two halves of the island, and providing a new spatial image of Taiwan as a unified terrain.
At the time, Taiwan was not yet a province, but only a prefecture under Fujian province. It wasn’t until 1885-87 that Sinicization fully came into force, when the imperial court granted the island full status as a province of China. This was prompted by the French naval blockade of 1884-1885, in response to which the Qing government dispatched Liu Mingchuan 劉銘傳, a Chinese official, who successfully warded off the French threat and proclaimed victory. Liu consequently initiated the process of modernizing the island’s infrastructure and economy, and changed the island’s administrative structure, establishing three major prefectures: Tainan 臺南, Taiwan 臺灣, and Taipei 臺北. The eastern coast was designated to be a separated administrative department, Taidong 臺東
This marked shift in Taiwan’s political status resulted in a drastic update in its cartographic representation, as evidenced by this rare copy of Taiwan neishan fanshe diyu quantu 臺灣內山番社地輿全圖 (Complete Map of Taiwan including the indigenous regions in the mountains), published in 1888, one year after Taiwan became a province. The map clearly identifies the new prefectures set up by Liu, all framed in double-bordered squares. These new prefectures also represent the critical shift of the provincial capital from the south to the north. Tainan 臺南 does not appear on maps made before this example, such as the aforementioned 1879 map of Taiwan, which instead marks the location as the capital Taiwan fucheng 台灣府 城 (provincial capital of Taiwan). This is because Liu transferred the site of Taiwan’s provincial capital from Tainan 臺南 to central Taiwan. While the new capital was under construction, the northern city of Taipei, designated as the temporary provincial capital, became the permanent capital.
As the first complete map showing Taiwan as a Chinese province, it speaks for perhaps the most critical transition period in the history of Taiwan. Very rare. The only other example is in the National Library of China.
[WALKER, John], MATSUMOTO, Nikichi and SHIMIZU, Tsunetaro 《實地踏測臺灣詳密地圖》
Lithograph map, hand-coloured, two areas of loss to old folds, skilfully repaired in facsimile.
Dimensions 1030 by 735mm (40.5 by 29 inches).
£12,000.00
The first Japanese printed map of Taiwan and the birth certificate of Japaneseoccupied Taiwan. An extremely scarce and important large-scale map of Taiwan issued near the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (August 1, 1894 - April 17, 1895), prior to the Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895) and the Japanese invasion of Taiwan (May 29, 1895 - October 21, 1895). It was translated into Japanese by Nikichi Matsumoto (謙堂松本), and published by Nakamura Yoshimatsu (中村芳松).
This map was likely a diplomatic and propaganda ploy prepared in anticipation of the Shimonoseki treaty negotiations, which included an Imperial Japanese demand for the Qing cession of Taiwan.
The map does not represent contemporary Taiwan geography. The deviations from established Taiwan cartography, much of which was available to the Japanese, may indicate an insidious intent - a diplomatic deception intended to diminish the territorial significance of Qing administered Taiwan, then limited to the coastal lowlands west of the Central Mountain Range, while at the same time exaggerating the eastern ungoverned tribal regions and retaining the island’s overall area.
The text next to the title claims that the cartography is adapted from a map made by a British naval officer John Walter, who seemed to have made his map before 1884, as the geography of Taiwan is depicted as a province under the Qing government. In particular, Tainan is depicted as the provincial capital, and military posts and railways constructed by the Qing are labelled on the map. It is unclear why an early Taiwan map was used when the Japanese had accurate European maps of Taiwan collected for the Japanese Punitive Expedition of 1874.
Japanese Occupation of Taiwan
Japan occupied Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. Japanese naval forces invaded Taiwan in May 1895, after it was ceded to them by Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895) at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895). The occupation of Taiwan fit into Imperial Japan’s Nanshin-ron (南進論) or Southern Expansion Doctrine, which argued that Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines were essential to Japan’s economic and territorial growth. Katsura Taro (1747 - 1913), a Yamaguchi Samurai, wrote of Taiwan’s significance, ‘It is not only the most ideal location for expanding power to southern China, but also the islands of Southeast Asia.’ Although there were some indigenous attempts at resistance and self-governance, including the founding of the ‘Republic of Taiwan’, Asia’s first republic, the Japanese were quickly able to suppress Taiwann nationalism. In less than six months, Japanese naval forces achieved, with the arguable exception of the tribal central highlands, full control of the island. Taiwan was Japan’s first major extraterritorial holding, and Imperial Japan worked diligently transform it into showpiece ‘model colony.’ Japan lavished resources on the island’s economy, including public works, industrial development, and cultural Japanization. First Japanese printed map of
After an initial period of unrest, the Japanese were generally effective in Taiwan, where they were, for the most part, approved of by the Taiwanese, who appreciated the advanced technology and economic growth. Of course, the darker side of Imperial Japanese investment in Taiwan was its planned essential role in supporting Japanese military aggression in the Asia-Pacific.
The Mysterious Source: John Walter / Water
Text on the map claims the cartography is copied from work done by a former British Royal Navy officer named John Walter or Water (ジョン・ ウォートル). We have been unable to trace Walter/Water or any survey work completed by this individual. Certainly, the British Royal Navy were active in the waters around Taiwan from 1817, and had successfully compiled a respectable map of the coast by 1867. By addressing this unidentified British officer on the map, it may be that the Japanese publisher wishing to confer British legitimacy upon this map.
The Inset Maps
From just under the title block, the insets are, clockwise,
• 江蘇島 (Jiangsu Island)
• 海南島 (Hainan Island)
• 舟山島 (Zhoushan Island, off the coast southeast of Shanghai)
• 菲律賓群島 (Philippine Islands)
• 澎湖島 (Penghu Island)
• 竹山島 (Zhushan Island - south of 岱山島 Daishan Island)
• 崇明島 (Chongming Island – an alluvial island at the mouth of Yangtze River)
• 普陀山島 (Putuoshan Island – to the east of Zhoushan Island)
• 南澳島 (Nan’ao Island, small Island in Shantou County)
This map was published by Nakamura Yoshimatsu in Osaka, Japan on February 1st, 1895 (Meiji 28) and released shortly thereafter on February 5th. This map is rare. We are aware of one example at the National Diet Library, Tokyo and another in that Taiwan National Archives.
HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE
China Sea. North Coast of Formosa (Taiwan) Kiirun Ko (Keelung Harbour) From the Japanese Government Plans of 1919.
Publication
London, Published at the Admiralty, New Edition 11th April, 1921. Small corrections to 1923.
Description
Engraved chart, including tidal information, compass roses, soundings, seabed notations, currents, sandbanks, shoals, lighthouses and beacons picked out in yellow and red, inland elevations, detailing, and buildings.
Dimensions
710 by 1040mm (28 by 41 inches).
£950.00
Admiralty chart of northern Taiwan
Detailed chart of the Keelung Port on the north coast of Taiwan.
Taiwan at the time of the chart’s publication was under the control of the Japanese, who in 1895 had gained control of the island from the Chinese after the First Sino-Japanses War. Under the adminstration of the Japanese Keelung became one of the major trading ports in Taiwan. Although heavily bombed during the Second World War, the port today is one of the busiest container ports in the world.
The British Hydrographic Office was founded in 1795 by George III, who appointed Alexander Dalrymple as the first Hydrographer to the Admiralty. The first charts were produced in 1800. Unlike the U. S. Coast Survey the Hydrographic Office was given permission to sell charts to the public and they produced a great number of sea charts covering every corner of the globe. Most of the Admiralty charts produced by the Hydrographic Office delineated coastline as well as high and low water marks and record depth of water as established by soundings. In addition these charts included information on shoals, reefs, and other navigational hazards that plagued mariners across the world. Thanks to the innovations of Sir Francis Beaufort, who developed the Beaufort Scale of wind strength, the British Hydrographic Office became one of the leading producers of sea charts. In fact, such was their accuracy that the phrase “Safe as an Admiralty Chart” was coined.
The children’s mission field. Formosa money box.
Publication London.
Description
Lithograph??? map affixed to the front side of a wooden money box.
Dimensions 155 by 80mm (6 by 3.25 inches).
£250.00
The Bank of Taiwan
A rare map of Taiwan is affixed to a money box that was used for collecting donations dedicated to providing humanitarian aid to children in Taiwan. The map is oriented towards the East and includes toponyms of coastal regions and mountain ranges, such as Mt. Sylvia and Mt. Morrisons. To the lower right of the map, the inscription “Formosa. The Children’s Mission Field” suggests that the money box was used to gather contributions aimed at improving the lives of Taiwanese children.
This initiative was part of “The Children’s Mission Field,” a project delivered by the English Presbyterian Mission, which began in the late 19th century and continued until the mid-twentieth century. The goal of this movement was to spread the Christian faith and enhance the well-being of Taiwanese children.
China was selected as the first mission field for the English Presbyterian Mission, with Amoy being the first mission field established by Burns and Dr James Young. The mission field then expanded to the Swatow area of East Shandong, and later extended inland with the establishment of the Hakka mission in 1879. In 1865, the mission began in Formosa (Taiwan) and was soon designated as a children’s field. The missionaries who participated in this movement founded schools, orphanages, and other educational and social institutions to cater to the needs of Taiwanese children.
While the primary focus of this movement was on children, it had more far-reaching implications for Taiwanese society and culture. The missionaries who took part in the initiative played a vital role in shaping the educational and social systems of Taiwan during a crucial period of its development, and their influence continues to impact the country to this day.
CORONELLI, Vincenzo Maria.
Asia Divisa nelle sue Parti secondo lo stato presente Descritta, e Dedicata.
Publication Venice, Girolamo Albrizzi, 1691.
Description Engraved map on two sheets, good wide margins.
Dimensions 605 by 920mm (23.75 by 36.25 inches).
References Clancy Terra Australis map 6.22; Sweet 73; Tooley 351.
£6,000.00
Coronelli’s Asia showing the discoveries of the Jesuits and the Dutch
Published in Coronelli’s magnificent atlas ‘Atlante Veneto, nel quale si contiene la descrittione... degl’ Imperii, Regni, Provincie, e Stati dell’ Universo’, Venice 1691, but also possibly issued separately earlier.
Coronelli has dedicated his large and decorative map of Asia to the Jesuits, or the Society of Jesus, who first arrived in Asia when Francis Xavier landed in Goa in May of 1542. Over the course of ten years, Xavier travelled across Asia, taking in much of India, as far as Sri Lanka, Malacca, the Molucca Islands, Japan and China. He died of a fever in 1552 on the island of Shang Chuan, while waiting for a boat to take him to mainland China. Thirty years later, Matteo Ricci an Italian Jesuit, began his mission in China, eventually spending twenty-eight years there. The Jesuits were the first, and for many centuries, the only, to bring knowledge of the far east to the attention of Europeans.
This highly decorative and detailed map, shows the results of Dutch discoveries in Australia, and Tasman’s in particular. Maarten de Vries’ exploration is shown in the shape of the north of Japan.
The mapmaker Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718) was an Italian cartographer and globe maker. He was apprenticed to a woodcut printer at ten years old, but then entered the Franciscan Order as a novice at thirteen.
In 1701, he was made Father General of the Order, but was removed from office by the Pope three years later after complaints from fellow clerics. Coronelli mainly lived and worked in Venice, but an opportunity arose to make his name when an early commission for two globes for the Duke of Parma brought him to the attention of the Cardinal d’Estrées, who summoned him to Paris to create two huge globes for Louis XIV. They each had a diameter of fifteen feet, and were built with trapdoors so they could be worked on from the inside. He was made royal cartographer to Louis XIV in 1681 as a result, and worked in Paris for two years. He collaborated with Jean Baptiste Nolin, who went on to become the French publisher for all of Coronell’s work. On his return to Venice, Coronelli was made cosmographer to the Republic, and granted a stipend of 400 florins a year.
He printed globe gores in the ‘Libri dei Globii’ as well as producing pocket globes, and his large globe over a metre in diameter was owned by royalty across Europe. He issued the ‘Atlante Veneto’ in 1691, which was intended to be an extension of Blaeu’s atlas in three parts, covering hydrography and ancient and modern geography. One of the volumes was an isolario. Coronelli was known as a careful scholar, and his work across Europe gave him access to the latest information. For example, he produced the first widely published European map of settlements in New Mexico, ‘America Settentrionale’ (1688), after being given the information by a former governor of New Mexico, Diego de Peñalosa.
Coronelli also founded the world’s oldest surviving geographical society, the Accademia degli Argonauti, who produced a printed version of the Paris globes. They were named for Jason and the Argonauts, the adventurers who set out to find the golden fleece; their symbol was the globe surmounted by a ship in full sail. A list published in the ‘Epitome cosmografica’ in 1693 reveals that the society counted princes, ambassadors and cardinals amongst its members. They were to receive a minimum of six copper engravings a month, creating a a guaranteed market for his productions. Before his death, he had managed to produce six volumes of what he hoped would be a comprehensive encyclopedia, the ‘Biblioteca universale sacro-profana’.
COVENS, Johannes and MORTIER, Cornelius
Carte des Costes de L’Asie Sur L’Ocean Contenant les Bancs Isle et Costes &c.
Publication Amsterdam, chez Jean Covens et Corneille Mortier, [c1720].
Description Engraved chart with original hand colour.
Dimensions 572 by 872mm (22.5 by 34.25 inches).
£6,000.00
A chart of Asia and the Pacific Ocean. New Guinea is shown twice, once as an island and once as part of Australia, reflecting contemporary cartographic disagreements.
[ANONYMOUS]
Partie De L’Isle De Java - Suite De L’Isle De Iava.
Publication [Probably Paris, Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine, c1733-1739].
Description
Manuscript chart, pen and black ink and colour wash, on two separate sheets of paper watermarked with Strasburg Lily within a shield, initials “VDL” beneath and countermark “IV” (closest to Churchill 405, dated to 1733, from the mill of Pieter van der Ley, son of Gerrit Pieters van der Ley who worked De Wever - the Weaver - and De Bonsem - the Polecat - mills at Koog aan de Zaan, Holland, from 1674 onwards).
Dimensions 530 by 1500mm (20.75 by 59 inches), overall.
References Simpson, ‘Java Emerging Unfolding Cartographic Views’, The National Library Magazine, December 2010.
£32,500.00
French manuscript chart of Java - the heart of the Dutch empire
The conquest of Jakarta by the Dutch, who immediately renamed the port Batavia, in 1619, gave the VOC its Asian headquarters, from which it commanded a vast trading empire, eventually extending from southern Africa to Japan, that lasted for nearly two hundred years. By the end of the 1730s, the British and French had begun to flex their seafaring muscles in the area, and were publishing their own maps. This large-scale and detailed French chart of Java is clear evidence of a hostile interest that is directed at the very the heart of the Dutch empire. It is very similar to Francois Valentyn’s large chart ‘Nieuwe en zeer naaukeurige kaart van t Eyland Java Major of Groot Java’, published in his ‘Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, vervattende een Naaukeurige en Uitvoerige Verhandelinge van Nederlands Mogentheyd in die Gewesten’, 1724-1726, based on his own research, correspondence, and from previously unpublished material secured from the VOC officials.
Some of this information must also have been available to the Chatelain family who published their ‘Carte de l’Ile de Java: Partie Occidentale, Partie Orientale,...’ (1719), which included details of inland topography not found on this manuscript chart, nor on Valentyn’s. The Chatelain map is avowedly based on Hadriaan Reland’s work, which was not published by the Dutch until Johannes van Keulen issued it as ‘Insulae Iavae pars Occidentalis edente Hadriano Relando’ in 1728. Interestingly, this manuscript chart includes soundings that are not expressed on Chatelains’ chart, implying some more recent knowledge of the coastline.
However, it does not reflect VOC knowledge of the southern coastline of Java dating from 1739, when Paulus Paulsz., in the ‘sloop de Valk’, went on a surveying expedition there. His report and much more detailed chart, which “remained the best sea chart of this area until the end of the VOC rule” (Schilder, p.173), survive.
In 1513, Francisco Rodrigues sailed with the “Portuguese expedition from Malacca to find the unknown source of the rich trade in nutmeg, mace and other spices. They sailed along the north coast of Java, a trip from which Rodrigues prepared the first European map of Java’s basic outline only of the north coast from direct observation. The Dutch, who followed the Portuguese, also ignored the interior in their mapping. In 1619, when the VOC established Batavia (present-day Jakarta) as a trading entrepot, the south coast remained relatively unknown: it did not lie on the route to the valuable Molucca Spice Islands. The interior lands away from Batavia were ignored as long as the Javanese kingdoms remained quiescent; the VOC was intent only on ensuring a profitable return for its investors. Pursuit of these immediate economic goals restricted the exploration and associated topographic cartography of Java for nearly a century. A trivial cartographic misunderstanding reveals much about the stagnant state of mapping in Java at that time. The VOC sent Cornelius Coops by ship in 1698 to update the charts of the south coast; until this time, charting was largely restricted to the northern coast, where the Dutch ports and trading centres were located. Several schematic
manuscript maps of the whole island appeared in Isaak de Graaf ’s ‘Atlas Amsterdam’, compiled by the VOC at the end of the seventeenth century (but not published until the 1980s), chiefly showing unnamed rivers and several VOC strongholds in the island’s interior. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, further mapping of the interior was conducted in a spasmodic and uncoordinated manner. The maps, mostly by anonymous cartographers, are in manuscript form and are held by the Netherlands National Archives, The Hague. They were prepared internally by the VOC as administrative, planning and strategic documents for circulation and use by VOC officials. VOC maps were closely guarded trade secrets; however, commercial maps of the whole of Java and the neighbouring island of Madura were becoming readily available in Europe by the second decade of the eighteenth century” (Simpson).
This anonymous manuscript chart was probably prepared by the Dépôt de la Marine, known more formally as the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine, the central charting institution of France. The centralisation of hydrography in France began in earnest when Jean-Baptiste Colbert became First Minister of France in 1661. Under his watch, the first Royal School of Hydrography began operating, as did the first survey of France’s coasts (1670-1689).
The Dépôt itself began as the central deposit of charts for the French Navy. In 1720, the Navy consolidated its collection with those government materials covering the colonies, creating a single large repository of navigation. By 1737, the Dépôt was creating its own original charts and, from 1750, they participated in scientific expeditions to determine the accurate calculation of longitude.
In 1773, the Dépôt received a monopoly over the composition, production, and distribution of navigational materials, solidifying their place as the main producer of geographic knowledge in France. Dépôt- approved charts were distributed to official warehouses in port cities and sold by authorized merchants. The charts were of the highest quality, as many of France’s premier mapmakers worked at the Dépôt in the eighteenth century, including Philippe Bauche, Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, Rigobert Bonne, Jean Nicolas Buache, and Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré.
The Dépôt continued to operate until 1886, when it became the Naval Hydrographic Service. In 1971, it changed names again, this time to the Naval and Oceanographic Service (SHOM). Although its name has changed, its purpose is largely the same, to provide high quality cartographic and scientific information to the France’s Navy and merchant marine.
Charting a voyage of nearly two thousand nautical miles from the Sunda Strait to Hong Kong
LE
SAGE, P.
Carte depuis la fin du Detroit de la Sonde jusqu’a la fin D’Etroit de Banca faitte en l’anne 1734 –[Singapore Strait] – [South China Sea].
Publication [Probably Lorient, La Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes], 1734.
Description
Three manuscript charts, on two different scales, but adjoining, pen and red and black ink with colour wash, on paper, laid down on blue linen, signed within the title cartouche (lower sheet only) on a paper overlay upper right.
Dimensions 1100 by 680mm (43.25 by 26.75 inches), each sheet.
References Veyssiere ‘Les Voyages Francais a la Chine (1720-1793).
£87,000.00
A magnificent series of manuscript charts plotting a continuous route, of nearly two thousand nautical miles, for the voyage of Captain Louis Dryas in the French East Indiaman, ‘La Paix’, from the northeastern exit of the Sunda Strait to the estuary of the Pearl River in China: “Route du Vaisseau la Compagnie de Indes Paix Capitaine Monsieur Louis Dryas allant en Chine en 1733”.
Possibly a private commission, perhaps to commemorate one of the earliest voyages undertaken by the La Compagnie perpétuelle des Indes, according to new regulations that came into effect in September of 1733. These clearly defined the use of company vessels according to their destination, reserving voyages to China for the company’s largest vessels. Larger ships meant larger cargoes, and so greater financial reward. Many of these larger vessels had, until recently, been warships employed in the War of Polish Succession, which had ended with the “Pacte de Famille”, between France and Spain in February of 1733. The name of the vessel, La Paix, is undoubtedly significant.
The first, and most southern, sheet has all the hallmarks of granddesign. It is drawn on a very large scale, “Echelles des Lieux Francois a 20 au degrees”, has an unfinished but very decorative title-cartouche, two large decorative compass roses, and the port of Batavia on the north coast of Java is drawn in some detail. It extends from the northern-most exit of the Sunda Strait to the entrance, to the western tip of Bangka island and Palembang in Sumatra. Depth soundings are given throughout.
The untitled middle sheet, while drawn on the same scale, is altogether less decorative, perhaps indicating a waning of funds for the cartographer. Nevertheless, the chart shows clearly and accurately the islands of the Singapore Strait, including the (unnamed) island of Singapore, and the east coast of Malaysia, as far north as Tioman Island.
The northernmost sheet, also untitled, is drawn on a much smaller scale, continues the voyage to the South China Sea, and includes the coastlines of Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hainan, to the coast of mainland China beyond Hong Kong, where the voyage ends. Annotations, possibly in the hand of Captain Dryas himself, indicate where ‘La Paix’ was made to remain at “anchorage” at “Pto Caby”, and the “Embouchure dela Riviere de Canton”. The geography of the islands in the estuary is still a bit muddled, with present-day Hong Kong Island appearing as “I Lantoa”, opposite the mainland labeled as “Boca Lantao”. Macao appears as a distinct island. Nevertheless, Sage’s map precedes the publication of Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville’s ‘Carte particuliere de l’entrée de Canton’, which attempts to accurately chart the islands of the Pearl River estuary, by a year; and Jacques Nicholas Bellin’s by fifteen.
The north coast of Borneo appears in some detail, and the westernmost coasts of Luzon and Mindanao in the Philippines, but Manila is just off the chart.
D’APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE, Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Denise
Nouvelle Carte des Mers Comprises entre Le Detroit de Banca et P.o Timon, avec la partie Orientale du Detroit de Malac.
Publication [Paris and Brest, Chez Demonville, Imprimeur-Libraire de l’Academie Francoise; Chez Malassis, ImprimeurLibraire de la Marine, 1775].
Description Engraved chart.
Dimensions 555 by 800mm (21.75 by 31.5 inches).
£1,100.00
“I. de Jatana ou de Saincapour”
Oriented with west to the top, this chart of the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, part of the Malacca Strait, and Singapore Strait, shows Singapore as an island, “I. de Jatana ou de Saincapour”. With numerous coastal profiles and an inset ‘Plan de l’Anse, du Sud Est de Pulo Timon et de sa Rade’. While many of the treacherous islands of the navigable straits and depth soundings are shown, a note on the chart warns that there are numerous uncharted islands to the south and west.
From the second edition of ‘Le Neptune Oriental’, D’Apres de Mannevillette’s rare sea atlas.
A famous French sailor and hydrographer, d’Apres de Mannevillette (1707-1780), was the son of a French sea-captain and, at the age of twelve, sailed with his father to Bengal. After his return, he studied astronomy and geometry in Paris. During a long career in the French merchant marine, starting as fourth officer in 1726, he visited many parts of the world and collected valuable navigational information. He studied under the famous Guillaume Delisle, the King’s geographer. He experimented with improved scientific instruments and navigational methods. During his voyage to China in 1728 he was the first to use the octant (or Hadley’s quadrant) on a voyage to measure latitudes, and determined longitudes by measuring the angular distance between the moon and sun and succeeded in correcting the latitudes of many place. He first visited the Cape of Good Hope in 1737 while on his way to China as a lieutenant aboard the Prince de Conti. During his many voyages d’Apres de Mannevillette created a number of charts for a hydrographic atlas which, with the support of the Academie des Sciences, was published in Paris in 1745 under the title ‘Le Neptune Oriental’ with 25 maps. The atlas contained charts of the route to China: the Red Sea, the coasts of India, Malaya, the northern parts of Indonesia, Indochina and China.
“The new sea atlas quickly found its way into the pilot cabins of ships of several nations, and its 22 charts were immediately recognised as being superior to all previous maps of Southeast Asian coasts” (Suárez p.238).
In 1762 the Compagnie des Indes (French East India Company) appointed D’Apres de Mannevillette as director of maps and plans at Lorient, and five years later he was decorated with the order of St. Michael. In 1765, he published his ‘Memoire sur la navigation de France aux Indes’, which was translated into English (1769) and Dutch (1770), and served all who sailed round the Cape to the East. The 1768 edition includes descriptions of Tristan da Cunha, False Bay, and Simon’s Bay.
Mannevillette spent 30 years, often in concert with his friend, and eminent British hydrographer, Alexander Dalrymple, working on the second edition of his maritime atlas. It was substantially enlarged from the first edition of 1745 and was heavily used throughout the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Most maps are now corrected with paste-on labels. This comprehensive atlas was used on all French ships for navigating the Indian Ocean. It replaced the “English Pilot” published by John Thornton in 1700 and the charts of the van Keulens, the hydrographers of the Dutch East India Company. The second edition eventually required a supplement, published posthumously in 1781 and reissued in 1797.
[HAYASHI, Shihei] 朝鮮八道之図
[Chōsen hachidō no zu].
Publication
Tokyo, Suharaya Ichibē, late Edo.
Description
Manuscript map, ink and watercolour, folding into the original yellow wrappers.
Dimensions
730 by 510mm (28.75 by 20 inches).
£5,000.00
A Map of the Eight Provinces of Korea
A hand-colored map from the late Edo period, one of the five maps included in ‘Sangoku Tsuran Zusetsu’ (’An Illustrated Description of the Three Countries’) a famous and banned work by Japanese scholar Hayashi Shihei in 1785. The book describes and illustrates the geography, history, culture, and current conditions of Japan’s neighbouring countries: Korea, the Ryukyu Kingdom (now Okinawa Prefecture), and Ezo (now Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands).
Hayashi likely based this detailed map of Korea on Korean originals, but he added details, including the existence of the residence in Busan maintained by envoys from the Japanese Domain of Tsushima, which had a relationship with Korea throughout most of the Edo period. He also included latitude lines and text showing the distance between this residence and the Korean capital in both Japanese and Korean measurements.
Hayashi Shihei was a military and political theorist who wrote ‘Sangoku Tsuran Zusetsu’ from a national security point of view. He was particularly concerned about the growing Russian presence in East Asia and advocated strengthening Japan’s borders, especially in Ezo (Hokkaidō) on the northern frontier. Hayashi’s map of Ezo includes a northern island, Sakhalin, believed to be the first description of this island recorded in Japan. Although the Edo government banned the book in 1792, a copy was taken to Siberia and eventually translated into French and published in Paris in 1832.
Compared to other examples held by Saga Prefectural Library and the National Diet Library, this copy is more colourful and has intricately depicted shorelines. Unlike another map included in ‘Sangoku Tsuran Zusetsu’, this version is undated but inscribed with the words ‘Map by Hayashi Shihei of Sendai’.
LAURIE, Robert; and James WHITTLE
A Chart of the Northern Part of the Straits of Malacca, from The Road of Acheen to Malacca, by Mons.r D’Apres de Mannevillette, with Improvements from Captn. Hall, Captn. Popham, and Other navigators.
Description Engraved chart, on two sheets, joined.
Dimensions
470 by 640mm (18.5 by 25.25 inches).
£1,100.00
Chart of the northern Malacca Strait between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsular. From an early edition of Laurie & Whittle’s rare ‘East India Pilot’, based on d’Apres Mannevillette’s ‘Carte Plate de la partie Septentrionale du Detroit de Malac, depuis de la rade d’Achem jusqu’a Malac’ (1775), published in English by Sayer and Bennett in 1778, but here more detailed. With the addition of a coastal profile and an inset upper right, ‘Plan of Poolo Pinang, now Prince of Wales’s Island, with its Straits and Harbour; Given to Capt. Light by the King of Queda, and of which Possession has been taken by that Officer, for the use of the English East India Company, Aug.st 11th, 1786”. A note beneath the title states that “Detail of the Eastern Coast of Sumatra is taken from Dutch Charts, and as the European Ships do not frequent it, it is but imperfectly known : Care has been taken only to place the Soundings, along that Coast in the usual Track of the Ships, the same attention has been paid for all the Depths marked in the Straights. Chiefly in the Neighbourhood of the Aroas and between the North and South Sand, to cross from those Islands to Parcelar Hill”.
Laurie & Whittle’s ‘East India Pilot’ was published as a practical guide to navigators aboard ships of the Royal Navy and East Indiamen, and often taken to sea, and this chart appears to be no exception. All variants of Laurie and Whittle’s ‘Oriental’ pilots of eastern waters are scarce, and were published under several titles, each with a different complement of charts. Variants include: ‘The Country Trade East-India Pilot, for the Navigation of the EastIndies and Oriental Seas, within the limits of the East-India Company’, ‘The Complete East-India Pilot, or Oriental Navigator’, ‘The East-India Pilot, or Oriental Navigator’, and ‘The Oriental Pilot; Or, East-India Directory’ focusing on the most important charts used for the journey.
The foundation of the partnership of Robert Laurie (1755–1836) and James Whittle (1757–1818) was the existing stock of Robert Sayer’s printing plates, both for maps and atlases and also decorative prints. Laurie had originally apprenticed to Robert Sayer in 1770, and made free in 1777. He was a skilled artist, who exhibited at the Society of Artists from 1770, winning a silver palette for a drawing in 1770, and he was also an accomplished engraver of mezzotint portraits and produced views and other decorative items. In about 1792 he returned to the Sayer business and took it over from the ailing Sayer in 1794. Whittle was apprenticed into the Needlemakers’ Company, evidently made free by 1792, and joined with Laurie to take over the Sayer business in 1794.
Laurie retired in 1812. His son Richard Holmes Laurie replaced him in the partnership and, eventually, took over the firm after Whittle’s death in 1818. Presumably under the influence of Richard Holmes Laurie, the partnership became noted as chartmakers and publishers, with the business existing to the current day as Imray, Laurie, Norie and Wilson.
HORSBURGH, James
A Plan of the Soundings from Pulo Aor to the Southward and outside of the Reef off Point Romania towards the entrance to Sincapour Strait, with the Land adjacent and the relative positions of the Hills &c.
Publication London, 1st Jan.y 1806, by James Horsburgh - Corrected from a Survey by Cap.t D.l Ross, 1818 [but 1834].
Description Engraved chart, on paper watermarked 1834.
Dimensions 780 by 680mm (30.75 by 26.75 inches).
£4,000.00
The eastern entrance to the Singapore Strait
When it was first printed in 1806, this very detailed chart of the eastern entrance to the Singapore Strait, was one of the earliest of Horsburgh’s published charts. Showing the area from “Part of Sincapore Island” in the west to “Bintang Northeast Point”, the chart is centered on the Pedro Branco, which would eventually be the location of an important lighthouse commemorating Horsburgh. Horsburgh knew these waters well, and the chart includes five panels of lengthy notes to help the wary sailor navigate them successfully: “To pass into the Great Inner Channel, between Romania Islands and the Reef, do not approach the latter nearer than the outer double line, or Transit of Pedro Branco and False Barbucit, till clear of the West end of the Reef marked A...”
This edition of the chart differs considerably from its first publication, with changes supplied by the surveys of Captain Daniel Ross (1780-1849). In 1807, Ross was tasked by the East India Company to survey the China Seas. He spent nine years surveying the coast between 1807 and 1816, and then spent a further four years charting the seas between 1816 and 1820. On his return to England in 1821 he was rewarded with a cash sum of £1,500 from the East India Company, for his tireless work out in the Far East. He would later appear before a government Select Committee investigating the possibilities of increasing Britain’s trade with China.
HORSBURGH, James; and Captain Daniel ROSS
China Sea - Sheet I [and] Sheet II To Capt. D. Ross and His Assistants Lieut. P. Maugham, J. Crawford, and J. Houghton, of the Bombay Marine; Who under the auspices of the Hon.ble East India Company, having performed with Arduous Zeal a difficult and dangerous Exploration of the China Sea, so Essential to the safety of Navigation, This Chart - Although with an extension of Limits being Chiefly Construction from Their Valuable Surveys, is now Inscribed as a Tribute due to Those Laudable Exertions By their Sincerely Obliged Friend, James Horsburgh.
Publication
London, James Horsburgh, Hydrographer to the Hon.ble East India Company, October 1st, 1821... with Additions to 1846 [but 1849and -] 1 Feb.y 1823,... Additions to 1850.
Description
Two engraved charts, laid down on linen.
Dimensions 660 by 1000mm (26 by 39.25 inches), each chart.
£2,900.00
“The best route towards China for leaky crazy ships during the strength of the S.W. Monsoon”
Exceptionally detailed, large-scale charts of parts of Southeast Asia and the China Sea, including Singapore, Malay, Borneo, Cambodia, Cochin- China, Hainan, southeast China, Taiwan, and Luzon in the Philippines. The chart boldly indicates the “best” sea-routes to and from Batavia to China, depending on the season, and the condition of the vessel. “The best route towards China for leaky crazy ships during the strength of the S.W. Monsoon” plots a course that hugs the shores of the Malay Peninsula and Cambodia. The islands of the “Sincapour Strait”, including “Sincapour”, in shown in great detail, with numerous depth soundings, and coastal profiles. Printed updates, to the location of dangerous shoals in particular, appear to 1849.
The current charts were first published in 1821 and 1823, respectively, as part of a plan to monetize his experience by producing a series of charts of the China Sea, Malacca Strait, and Bombay Harbour. Touchingly, the lower sheet shows the “Pedro Branco Light” that was built as a commemoration to Horsburgh upon his death in 1836, at the eastern entrance to the Strait of Singapore.
The map is dedicated to Captain Daniel Ross (1780-1849) and his team of hydrographers of the Bombay Marine. In 1807, Ross was tasked by the East India Company to survey the China Seas. He spent nine years surveying the coast between 1807 and 1816, and then spent a further four years charting the seas between 1816 and 1820. On his return to England in 1821 he was rewarded with a cash sum of £1,500 from the East India Company, for his tireless work out in the Far East. He would later appear before a government Select Committee investigating the possibilities of increasing the Britain’s trade with China.
With the tracks of many voyages from the Singapore Strait to Canton, and then on to Manila, plotted, and annotated in the same hand, in pen and different coloured ink, dated: 1856, 1858, 1859, 1860, and 1864.
Provenance
With the tracks of many voyages from the Singapore Strait to Canton, and then on to Manila, plotted, and annotated in the same hand, in pen and different coloured ink, dated: 1856, 1858, 1859, 1860, and 1864.
The Malayan Emergency
WAR OFFICE
Singapore [and] Penang Silk printed map with one inset, with map and inset to verso, with numerous visual and written details along lower edge of both images.
Publication [London], War Office, 1957.
Description Double-sided map printed on rayon.
Dimensions 552 by 786mm (21.75 by 31 inches).
£250.00
During the mid-eighteenth century, British firms were to be found trading in the Malay Peninsula, and in 1771, the British East India Company charged Captain Francis Light with the responsibility of setting up a trading post there. Light landed in the state of Penang, which was part of the Sultanate of Kedah. At this time, the Sultanate faced a number of internal and external threats, particularly from Siam, and Sultan Abdullah Mahrum Shah therefore offered Penang to Light in return for British protection. The Company, however, commanded Light to take over Penang without promising any assistance to Kedah. Light did indeed take Penang, but failed to mention to the Sultan that the British would not be providing him with any military backing until 1788, upon which the Sultan ordered the British to remove themselves from his territory. A small conflict ensued, in which the British forces razed the fort of Prai, and forced the Sultan to sign an agreement conceding their right to occupy Penang. Consequently, the Union Flag was raised for the first time in Penang on 1st May 1791.
Less than thirty years later, the British reinforced their influence in the Malay Peninsula when Sir Stamford Raffles founded modern Singapore, with the assistance of Major William Farquhar. In 1818, Farquhar had visited Tengku Hussein Shah, the son of the previous Sultan, who was in exile in Penyengat Island while his younger brother lead the Johor-Riau Sultanate. Together they drew up plans for an alliance: the British would acknowledge Tengku Hussein as the legitimate ruler of Singapore if he allowed them to establish a trading post there. Both parties signed a treaty to this effect on 6th February 1819. Hussein soon returned to Singapore, where he was installed as Sultan, but essentially remained a puppet of the British government.
Over the next century, Britain would continue to exert its influence across the Malay Peninsula, but in 1941, the Japanese launched an invasion as part of a coordinated attack that began in Pearl Harbour. Consequently, both Malaya and Singapore were under Japanese control from 1942 to 1945, until Japan’s surrender at the end of the Second World War resulted in their being placed under British Military Administration. Within a year, the British administration was consolidated by the formation of the Malayan Union, from which Singapore was excluded, being considered its own crown colony.
The Union proved deeply unpopular with the local population, and by 1948, it had been replaced by the Federation of Malaya, which achieved independence from British control on 31 August 1957. Six years later, all Malayan states, as well as Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo, formed a larger federation named Malaysia, although Singapore was expelled in 1965.
From the establishment of the Federation in 1948 to the ‘October Resolutions’ of 1960, the British and other Commonwealth forces were engaged in a prolonged conflict with the Communist independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army. The fighting spanned the colonial period and the creation of an independent Malaya. The form of guerrilla warfare employed by the insurgent Malayan fighters, and the
British responses, influenced many similar operations in the future, particularly during the Vietnam War. The conflict was never fought in Singapore, but Commonwealth forces from Australia and New Zealand used it as their base of operations.
This double-sided map of Singapore and Penang was issued by the British War Office in 1957, when the Federation of Malaya was officially formed, and while the Malayan Emergency was still being fought. The double-sided map is executed in the same style as numerous other conflict maps produced by the War Office during the mid-twentieth century: printed on fabric for durability and easy transportation, they were issued to soldiers and military personnel stationed in the region and contained not only geographical, but also political and military information as well.
The present maps were based on earlier War Office surveys of the region and updated with the political and topographic changes of the recent years. Passage through the treacherous waters of the Malacca Strait is shown with bold red lines. Relief is shown by contours and spot heights, given in metres on the Singapore map, and both metres and feet on the depiction of Penang, while depth is indicated by soundings. Beneath the maps on both sides are legends, an index and glossary, conversion tables and diagrams. On both sides, red lettering reads “RESTRICTED”.
LARMAT, Louis
Atlas de la France Vinicole.
Publication
Paris, Louis Larmat, 10 Bis, Rue Duhesme, 1941-1947.
Description
Six volumes. Folio (460 by 330mm). 35 double-page chromolithographed maps, including 12 folding, two charts and 33 full photograph pages, all unbound as issued in pictorial portfolios, one in a plastic cover, housed in original publishers burgundy cloth clamshell case, half embossed leather, volume six with tape marks to cover.
£12,000.00
Complete set of the world’s first national wine atlas
A rare, complete, and well-presented set of the world’s first national wine atlas. Containing numerous maps of the different wine regions, including some folding, with accompanying descriptions in French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Illustrated with woodcuts and photographs depicting chateaux, vineyards, the wine making process, and rural scenes.
L’Atlas de la France Vinicole covers the main wine producing regions of France in six volumes, presented loose as issued in portfolios.
Vol.1 : Les vins de Bordeaux, 1941
Vol.2 : Les vins de Bourgogne, 1942
Vol.3 : Les vins des côtes du Rhône, 1943
Vol.4 : Les vins de Champagne, 1944
Vol.5 : Les vins des coteaux de la Loire. 1ère Partie : Touraine et Centre, 1946
Vol.6 : Les eaux-de-vie de France. Le cognac, 947
The text in each volume is introduced by the President of CNOA (Comité National des Appellations d’Origine), an organisational collaboration between the French government and vineyard owners to stimulate economic growth after the Great Depression. Highlighted in colour are AOCs (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée), indicating different areas of legislation in each local region.
The CNAO praised Larmat’s maps as early as 1939 for their meticulous scientific clarity, although their publication was disrupted by the outbreak of the second world war - wine was rationed, and land was diversified for war efforts. Nevertheless, the premier cru of Burgundy was created in 1943, and Larmat continued to publish his successful maps until the Cognac volume in 1947. Plans for expansion and two further volumes were never realised, which would have included wines of: the Loire, Armagnac and Calvados, Alsace, and sweet fortified wines.
The atlas was updated in subsequent editions in 1949 and 1953. Region-wide comparative wine maps continued to prove rare, particularly ones lavishly printed to such a degree of accuracy. Larmat’s atlas remained unmatched in detail until the late twentieth century.
Louis Larmat was a French cartographer, who made his debut publication in 1924 in Provence. Little is known about Larmat other than his status as an ‘editeur Parisien’, a publisher in Paris with two separate business addresses. Although he authored no other wine map himself, Larmat did publish wine maps by three other cartographers later in his career.
MONTORGUEIL, Georges and Louis FOREST
Monseigneur Le Vin.
Publication
Paris, J. Van Gindertaele [and] Poyet Frères [and] Draeger Frères, 1924-1927.
Description
Five volumes. Octavo (200 by 145mm). Numerous coloured illustrations throughout text, five folding tables, four folding maps, four full-page maps, assorted ephemera; original marbled faux suede paper wrappers, original glassines (vol. 1 lacking glassine), all volumes housed within a chemise, within a slipcase, slipcase housed within a red clamshell solander box.
£2,000.00
Du vin, Monseigneur?
Complete set of a series of five elegant and amusing catalogues, published by historic French wine retailer, Nicolas.
Nicolas was founded in 1822 by Louis Nicolas, who revolutionized the wine trade, becoming the first man to sell wine by the bottle, not the barrel. The business exists to this day, now with 494 shops across France, as well as outlets in Belgium, Germany, Poland, and the UK.
Nicolas was known, also, for its innovative approach to advertising, as the ‘Monseigneur Le Vin’ series reflects. Volume One, ‘Le Vin A Travers L’Histoire’ (’Wine Through History’), traces an account of wine through such varied periods as the Bible, Gaul, and the Wine Wars, because, as Montorgueil notes, “to write a history of wine, is that not to write the history of the world?” (trans.). Volumes Two, Three, and Four, which include several maps, each discuss a different region of French wine-production: ‘Le Vin de Bordeaux’, ‘Le Vin de Bourgogne’, and ‘Anjou-Touraine, Alsace, Champagne et Autres Grands Vins de France’. Volume Five, meanwhile, ‘L’Art de Boire: Préparer, Servir, Boire’ (’The Art of Drinking: Preparation, Serving, Drinking’), is a master-class in becoming a connoisseur. Instruction includes: how to pour wine, how to choose the right style of glass, how to pair wines with food (try oysters, dressed lettuce, or crayfish with a dry white wine), and how to appreciate wine with all your senses.
Accompanying the present example is assorted ephemera, including two paper cut-outs, one of Nectar, Nicolas’s iconic moustachioed, bottleshaped mascot, with his son, Glou-Glou, and one of Nectar with his wife, Félicité.
The text of the first four volumes is written by “Georges Montorgueil”, one of the pseudonyms of Octave Lebesgue (1857-1933), a French journalist and writer who also wrote under the names “Jean Valjean” and “Caribert”. The final volume is written by journalist, essayist, dramatist, novelist, and politician Louis Forest (1872-1933), who wrote for ‘L’Illustration’ and ‘Le Figaro’.
Each volume is illustrated by a different artist: Marcel Jeanjean, PierreMarie-Joseph Lissac, Armand Vallée, Carlègle (Charles Émile Egli), and Charles Martin.
