Hereditas Antikvárium

Fair Partner ✔
14. Könyvárverés

Amsterdam, 1596.
A rare, copper-engraved map of China and East Asia, oriented east-west, by Jan Huygen van Linschoten, with the characteristics of the so-called portolan maps. This type of designation refers to nautical charts providing directions and other information vital to mariners, such as the location of deep-sea reefs and currents, to aid navigation. The creator of the beautifully illustrated sheet embellished it with two wind roses marking the intersection of the rhumb lines, sea and land creatures, galleys, and a sea battle. In the decorative cartouche, the list of the presented regions can be read in Latin at the top and in Dutch below. The second cartouche surrounds the linear scale, to which is attached a section showing the engraver and the time of production – Hendrick Florent van Langren, 1595 –although it first appeared as part of Linschoten’s “Itinerario” in 1596. The map is cartographically based on Luiz Jorge de Barbuda for China, Fernão Vaz Dourado for Southeast Asia and Japan, and Bartolomeo Lasso for the Philippines. Although the utterly distorted representation of Korea and Japan appearing as a circular island is striking based on our current knowledge, it is still the most accurate representation of the region of its time. On the map showing the continent and the surrounding archipelago in as much detail as possible – paying great attention to ensure that nothing from the coastline is obscured - the names of the settlements can be read at right angles to the coast, and the author drew attention to the shallow sea shelf with the dotted area.
Linschoten had access to several Portuguese portolans because he was the Secretary to the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa. In 1589, he decided to sail back to the Netherlands, but during his travel near the Azorean Isles, English pirates attacked and sunk his ship, so he returned home only in 1592. The reports of his travels (Voyage ofte schipvaert van Jan Huyghen van Linschoten) were released in 1596 in Amsterdam by Cornelis Claesz, richly illustrated with maps.
Dimensions: 390 x 525 (530 x 605) mm. Clear, strong print. Our copy was probably previously bound in a composite atlas as it was mounted on a larger blank sheet and numbered by hand (114).
Poss.: With the mounted embossed stamp of László Gróf L., the well-known map collector from Oxford, on the verso.
Suarez (SE Asia): Fig. 92.