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Description

First State of Moll's Map of East Asia

Decorative example of Herman Moll's large format map of India and Southeast Asia, including China and the Philippines, one of the most decorative and sought after maps of the region published in the 18th Century and the first large scale map of the region published in England.

The present map depicts the East Indies from the Persian border to New Guinea and the southern part of Japan, including India, Ceylon, Southeast Asia, most of China, present Indonesia, the Philippines, etc. It is augmented by insets featuring a plan of Bantam (a major port in Dutch-controlled Java); a view of Goa (the principal Portuguese base in India); a view of Surat (an English trading post in India); a plan of Madras, India (a major English base); as well as a plan of Batavia (the capital of the Dutch East Indies, today known as Jakarta). Richly annotated, the map illustrates the extent of European influence and trade, at the height of colonial influence throughout this critical region.

Importantly, the map was the most popular and authoritative general cartographic representation of South and East Asia published during this period when the activities of the East India Company (EEC) had risen to the forefront of the economic life of the British Empire. The EEC, whose arms appear in the far right of the map, was a private syndicate that was granted a charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, that henceforth allowed it a monopoly on all English trade with the East Indies. By 1720, the EEC's activities accounted for 15% of Britain's total imports. Its activities were focused on the Indian Subcontinent, with its immense wealth in precious gems, gold, textiles, tea and saltpeter (the key element for making gunpowder).

The EEC gained its initial foothold in India in 1612, upon being given permission by the Mughal Emperor to open a trading post in Surat. Indeed, over a century later, Moll noted on the map, "The Town of Surat is of ye Greatest Trade and Note in India". In 1634, the Company was given special trading privileges in the wealthy region of Bengal, the center of the subcontinent's lucrative textile trade. The EEC expanded its operation to the Coromandel Coast, founding Fort George (Madras) in 1639. By 1647, the Company had 23 factories spread throughout coastal India. The EEC's ascendency in the region reached a highpoint in 1668, when the Islands of Bombay (today's Mumbai) were given to England by Portugal as part of Charles II's wedding dowry.

However, in 1689, the EEC's great era of expansion was endangered when English pirates attacked Mughal interests, to the great consternation of Emperor Aurangzeb. Mughal forces seized Bombay and threatened to drive the English out of India. Only skilled diplomacy averted what would have been a disaster for the English economy. The ECC placated Aurangzeb, and in 1690 were permitted to found Fort William (Calcutta) in Bengal, which later became the capital of British India.

Not long after this map was published, the Company's horizons expanded further. In 1717, the Mughals granted the British an exemption from all customs duties in Bengal. Moreover, in 1711, the EEC opened up a massive new market when China's Kangxi Emperor granted the Company rights to trade for tea and silver at Canton (Guangzhou).

While the EEC was preeminent in mainland India, the map also shows the territories controlled its competitors, notably; the Dutch who dominated Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), as well as maintaining a post in Japan at Nagasaki; the Portuguese, who held several enclaves in India (notably Goa), as well as Macao in China; and the Spaniards who governed the Philippines. As noted on the map, various European powers maintained factories along the Indian coastlines, although these enterprises did not seriously rival the ECC interests on the subcontinent.

Herman Moll, who was famously known as one of the era's most commercially savvy mapmakers, devised the map as a celebration of the EEC's success, in an effort not only to appeal to public interest, but to gain the patronage of the Company's wealthy investors. Fittingly, the map is 'humbly dedicated' to the EEC's directors.

The first state of the map bears the imprint of Herman Moll only.  The later state of the map adds John King as a seller.

Condition Description
Several tears, expertly repaired on verso, primarily around the Batavia inset. Folds reinforced. A section along the top above Great Tibet and extending the centerfold area has been expertly restored, with some facsimile work.
Reference
Herman Moll Biography

Herman Moll (c. 1654-1732) was one of the most important London mapmakers in the first half of the eighteenth century.  Moll was probably born in Bremen, Germany, around 1654. He moved to London to escape the Scanian Wars. His earliest work was as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas, a failed work which landed Pitt in debtor's prison. Moll also engraved for Sir Jonas Moore, Grenville Collins, John Adair, and the Seller & Price firm. He published his first original maps in the early 1680s and had set up his own shop by the 1690s. 

Moll's work quickly helped him become a member of a group which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill, where speculators met to trade stock. Moll's circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and William Hacke. From these contacts, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was included in his maps. 

Over the course of his career, he published dozens of geographies, atlases, and histories, not to mention numerous sheet maps. His most famous works are Atlas Geographus, a monthly magazine that ran from 1708 to 1717, and The World Described (1715-54). He also frequently made maps for books, including those of Dampier’s publications and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Moll died in 1732. It is likely that his plates passed to another contemporary, Thomas Bowles, after this death.