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Description

De Fer’s Scarce Map of Asia

Fine example of this large-folio map of Asia by Nicholas de Fer, issued in Paris in 1705.

On a conical projection, the map stretches from eastern Poland to the mysterious islands of the North Pacific. It includes a vast swath of land from Nova Zembla to New Guinea. The latter is labeled as part of New Zealand, reflecting uncertainty about the geography of the South Pacific.

Island chains and archipelagos dot the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific, including the Maldives and the Marianas. Japan is shown as more horizontal than it actually is—a common portrayal on maps of this period. The landmass is divided into political units including Tartary, the Philippines, and the Mughal Empire (see below).

Several notable landmarks are included, like the Great Wall of China. In central Asia is a large lake, Chiamay, that has four streams flowing from it. This is a mythical lake thought to give rise to many of the great rivers of the continent (see below).

De Fer has included several narrative notes. In Africa is a large paragraph that explains the sources for the map. These focus on the Jesuit accounts of China (see below) and a “Mr. Witzen Hollander.” This latter reference is to Nicolaas Witsen, a Dutch politician and mayor of Amsterdam (thirteen times!) who gathered information on Russia for decades before publishing his book, Noord en Oost Tartarije (1705).  

In addition to geographical content, there are several cartouches in the corners of the map. In the lower left is a scale bar topped with geography texts, an armillary sphere, telescope, and other cartographic equipment. In the upper right is an elaborate title cartouche with a parade vignette at the bottom. The parade includes a gong, men with turbans, and a four-armed man, which may be a misinterpretation of a Hindu procession. Most notably, there is another cartouche in the upper right showing a Mandarin and a woman eating (incorrectly) with chopsticks. The cartouche carries a dedication to the children of France.

This is the second state of the map, dated 1705. The first state has the same content, but carries a date of 1700. The map’s plate was later acquired by Guillaume Danet, who revised it and published another state in 1722. While the map was separately issued, it was sometimes bound into composite atlases in the first decades of the eighteenth century.

Land between Asia and North America

One of the most distinctive features of the map is a fascinating land bridge between Asia and America, which is labeled "Toute cette Coste Ainsi que le Japon sont Tires d'apres les Cartes Portugaises fort different des nostres.” This translates to: “All this coast and Japan are taken from the Portuguese maps very different from ours.” Nearby is another note, “Ces Terre et Isles se reconnoissent par ceux qui passent de la Chine a la Nouvelle Espange.” In English, this is, “these Lands and Islands are recognized by those who pass from China to New Spain.”

The coastline along which the note runs is east-west running. There had long been discussions of the land in the North Pacific and connections between Asia and North America. The Strait of Anian, for one, is a waterway between the continents that morphs a Chinese toponym farther northeast.

The north of Japan is shown as a small, round island called Jeso. The etymology of the idiom Yesso (Eso, Yeco, Jesso, Yedso) is most likely the Japanese Ezo-chi; a term used for the lands north of the island of Honshu. During the Edō period (1600-1886), it came to represent the ‘foreigners’ on the Kuril and Sakhalin islands. As European traders came into contact with the Japanese in the seventeenth century, the term was transferred onto European maps, where it was often associated with the island of Hokkaido. It varies on maps from a small island to a near-continent sized mass that stretches from Asia to Alaska. 

The toponym held interest for Europeans because the island was supposedly tied to mythic riches. Father Francis Xavier (1506-1552), an early Jesuit missionary to Japan and China, related stories that immense silver mines were to be found on a secluded Japanese island; these stories were echoed in Spanish reports. The rumors became so tenacious and tantalizing that Abraham Ortelius included an island of silver north of Japan on his 1589 map of the Pacific.

Yesso is often tied to two other mythical North Pacific lands, Gamaland and Compagnies Land. Juan de Gama, the grandson of Vasco de Gama, was a Portuguese navigator who was accused of illegal trading with the Spanish in the East Indies. Gama fled and sailed from Macau to Japan in the later sixteenth century. He then struck out east, across the Pacific, and supposedly saw lands in the North Pacific. These lands were initially shown as small islands on Portuguese charts—the aforementioned sources in the map’s note—but ballooned into a continent-sized landmass in later representations.

Several voyagers sought out these chimerical islands, including the Dutchmen Matthijs Hendrickszoon Quast in 1639 and Maarten Gerritszoon Vries in 1643. Compagnies Land, often shown along with Staten Land, were islands sighted by Vries on his 1643 voyage. He named the islands for the Dutch States General (Staten Land) and for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) (Compagnies, or Company’s Land). In reality, he had re-discovered two of the Kuril Islands. However, other mapmakers latched onto Compagnies Land in particular, enlarging and merging it with Yesso and/or Gamaland.

In the mid-eighteenth century, Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer in Russian employ, and later James Cook would both check the area and find nothing. La Perouse also sought the huge islands, but found only the Kurils, putting to rest the myth of the continent-sized dream lands.

The Jesuits in China

The Jesuit order was dedicated to conversion and education in a global context. The focus of this evangelization for co-founder of the order Francis Xavier was the most populous nation on earth, China. He tried to get into China in 1552, dying on the island of Shangchuan. Three decades later, the order tried again. They sent the Italians Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri and others to Chinese language, philosophy, and religion.

While there, the Jesuits exchanged knowledge about mathematics, astronomy, geography, and other subjects. Ricci and his followers focused on Confucianism as a way to get close to the ruling elite. After Ricci’s death, Jesuit influence grew with the implementation of the Qing dynasty. Notable missionaries of the seventeenth century were Adam Schall, Ferdinand Verbiest, and Antoine Thomas.

Their presence was not without disagreements. The Chinese Rites Controversy raged for most of the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth, when this map was made. Ricci thought that converts could still practice the ceremonies of Confucianism and be devoted Christians. Dominicans thought these rites made them idolators. The debate raged in Rome and China, although ultimately the Chinese emperor supported Ricci’s followers. The Franciscans, however, convinced Pope Clement XI to outlaw Confucian phrases for God. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV forbade the use of ancestor worship, ending the controversy. Despite such issues, many Jesuits sent back memoirs and descriptions of Chinese culture and intellectual life, providing information for this map and other publications.

Lake Chiamay

Lake Chiamay first appeared on a map in 1554 when it was included on the terza tavola in the second edition of volume one of Ramusio’s Delle navigationi et viaggi. Drawn by Giacomo Gastaldi, this map of South and Southeast Asia shows a massive lake from which four rivers flow; these are commonly interpreted as the Chao Phraya, Salween, Irrawaddy, and a branch of the Brahmaputra, but also sometimes include other rivers.

Reports of the lake came from two Portuguese sources: a geographer, João de Barros, and an explorer, Fernão Mendes Pinto. Pinto wrote letters describing a great lake. Barros likely saw these letters. He, in turn, compiled a history of Asia, Décadas da Ásia, that mentioned the lake; Ramusio included Barros’ work in his own compilation of travel and exploration.   

Barros describes a lake that begat six rivers, but the map in Ramusio’s work shows only four. However, Gastaldi’s 1561 map, Tertia Pars Asiae, shows six rivers leaving and two entering the lake. After appearing in such an authoritative work, the lake was taken up by other mapmakers. Many used the Ramusio/Gastaldi model. Others innovated on the theme of this geographic chimera, as no such lake exists in the area.

Luis Jorge de Barbuda’s 1584 map shows the lake farther to the north and with a different river pattern. His model was taken up by Hondius in India Orientales (1606) and thereafter by many others. The Jesuit Martino Martini gathered information from his travels in eastern and northern China to compile Imperii Sinarum Nova Descriptio (1655). Martini included the lake, but added the Red River and had the Chao Phraya originate from a different lake. Around 1570, other maps appeared that gave Lake Chiamay only two outlets.

As more Jesuit knowledge of Southeast Asia filtered back to Europe, mapmakers such as Guillaume Delisle began to question the veracity of the lake. It last was added to a map by Vaugondy in 1751; it was reprinted in map reissues, however, until at least 1783. By the early-nineteenth century, the feature was understood to be nothing more than a cartographic myth. By the early-twentieth century, expeditions had definitively proven that no such lake existed.

The Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire began when Babur (r. 1526-1530), originally from Central Asia, established himself in Kabul, Afghanistan and marched south into India via the Khyber Pass. His descendants consolidated power and fought off rivals. Particularly under the rule of Akbar (r. 1556-1605), the Mughal Empire developed an imperial structure characterized by tolerance of religious differences and a competent administrative elite.

Later in the seventeenth century, the Mughal Empire developed not only as a center of arts and culture—the Taj Mahal was built during this time—but as a political and economic power house. By 1707, under the controversial ruler Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707), the Mughal Empire reached its largest extent, encompassing much of the Indian subcontinent. A decade later, however, the empire entered into decline. Many of the areas that had been added by Aurangzeb were in open revolt and the dynastic line was in chaos. In 1719, four separate emperors ruled. The Mughal Empire began to lose land and influence, particularly in the face of Maratha opposition and the arrival of the British East India Company. 

Reference
KAP
Nicolas de Fer Biography

Nicholas de Fer (1646-1720) was the son of a map seller, Antoine de Fer, and grew to be one of the most well-known mapmakers in France in the seventeenth century. He was apprenticed at twelve years old to Louis Spirinx, an engraver. When his father died in 1673, Nicholas helped his mother run the business until 1687, when he became the sole proprietor.

His earliest known work is a map of the Canal of Languedoc in 1669, while some of his earliest engravings are in the revised edition of Methode pour Apprendre Facilement la Geographie (1685). In 1697, he published his first world atlas. Perhaps his most famous map is his wall map of America, published in 1698, with its celebrated beaver scene (engraved by Hendrick van Loon, designed by Nicolas Guerard). After his death in 1720, the business passed to his sons-in-law, Guillaume Danet and Jacques-Francois Benard.