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A Rare late 19th-century map of China by the Russian scholar Emil Bretschneider, published in St. Petersburg.

This fine map depicts all of the Chinese Empire in finely lithographed relief. This is the second and heavily revised edition of his general map of China covering also Taiwan, Korea, part of Mongolia, Tibet, and Burma. Relief is shown by shading and hachures. Each province is carefully delineated and all major cities and towns are noted, with symbols employed to rank their political importance.

The map takes into account notable recent developments, such as the Qing expansion into the northwest regions of Kansu after 1878. The map also notes several enclaves and concessions controlled by European powers, such as the Russian base at Port Arthur on the Liaoning Peninsula. Korea is well-defined and while still an independent kingdom, its allegiance had recently been transferred from China to Japan, following the latter's victory during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5). In the lower margin it reads: engraved and printed by A. Iliin S. Petersburg. In lower right corner a key : "Significations of Walled Cities in China Proper . . ." Scale [ca. 1:4,500,000]. Engl. statute miles 69.16 = 1 degree.

The map is the work of Emil Bretschneider (1833-1901), a Russian doctor of German Baltic descent who graduated from the University of Dorpat (Estonia) medical school and initially served as physician to the Russian delegation in Tehran. From 1866 to 1883, he served as physician to the Russian delegation in Beijing. Shortly after his arrival in the Chinese capital, Bretschneider became immersed in Sinology. He quickly realized that most western Sinologists were too reliant upon poor second hand translations of Chinese source material, leading to severe misinterpretations of Chinese knowledge and philosophy. While in Beijing, he availed himself of the Library of the Russian Ecclesiastic Mission and undertook his own study of Chinese literature, most notably botany and geography. Additionally, Bretschneider was able to use his connections to the Chinese Government as well as various commercial and ecclesiastical institutions, in order to access the finest geographical sources for use in his maps.

In 1898 he published in St. Petersburg, a six part set of maps of China, all of which are very rare. The present map, issued in St. Petersburg, in 1900, represents the culmination of over 30 years of Bretschneider's work on the cartography of China and is one of the finest maps prepared during the twilight years of the Qing Dynasty. It was issued by the A. Ilyin, Russia's leading map publisher, in an effort to access the large American and British Imperial markets.

Beyond his maps, his published works include:

• "Fu Sang-- Who discovered America ?"
• "On the Knowledge Possessed by the Chinese of the Arabs and Arabian Colonies Mentioned in Chinese Books"
• "Notes on Chinese medieval travellers to the West"
• "Early European researches into the flora of China"
• "?History of Botanical Discoveries in China"??
• "Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, Trubner Oriental Series"

The last of these books, published in London, included his English translation of 3 important Chinese works about the history and geography of central Asia, "Travel to The West" (by Yelu Chucai, Genghis Khan's chief adviser); "Travels to the West" (by Kiu Chang Chun) and "The Peregrinations of Ye-Lu Hi-Liang" (the grandson of Yelu Chucai), translated from The Annual of Yuan dynasty.

The map is one of the most accurate and finely presented maps of China from the period and this particular example is exemplary for its excellent condition and the presence of its original slip case. This revised edition of the map is also rare, as we are aware of only one other example appearing on the market during the last 25 years.