D'ANVILLE, J-B-B. - Carte la plus generale et qui comprend la Chine, la Tartarie chinoise et le Thibet. . .
Description
In the upper left corner is very good details of towns in modern-day Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The region here is labeled as "SOGD" and important cities along the Silk Road are mentioned Bokara (Bukhara), Samarcand (Samarkand), etc.
In the west, Thibet and Kashgar are shown, in the north, Mongous, and in the northeast, Mantcheoux. All these areas are now part of modern China, respectively as Tibet, Xinjiang (whose second largest city is Khashgar), Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria (Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces).
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d' Anville (1697-1782), was a French cartographer who compiled over 200 maps. This map is from his most important work Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, published in The Hague 1737, The principal cartographic authority on China during the 18th century. (Tooley)
D'Anville used maps prepared by Jesuit missionaries and commissioned by Emporer-Kanyx, who in 1708-1716 ordered a surveying of the country. This map is the first accurate cartographic depiction of this area in the Western world.
The ornate cartouche shows Emperor Kang Hsi presiding over the survey he had ordered the Jesuits to execute in his name between 1708 and 1716. Two fathers, with an armed mounted escort, are investigating a farmer settlement, his lodging and cattle. The scale cartouche is adorned by two wolf hunters.
In the tradition of Sanson and de L'Isle French school of exact cartography, d'Anville brought exacting scholarship and accuracy to his maps. Never leaving Paris, he managed to amass a vast collection of geographical/historical/ statistical/political materials, in particular from the observations of Jesuit missionaries.
He is said to have produced his first map at age 15, but he gained notoriety only in 1735 for his contribution to du Halde's "Description. de la Chine.".
He quickly followed with the 1737 "Nouvel atlas de la chine", and then the 1740 "Atlas general".
- Reference N°: 29022
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