ASIAN CONTINENT 1669 GUILLAUME SANSON UNUSUAL ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED MAP

L'Asie Par N. Sanson d'Abbeville Geographe ord.re du Roy Revue et changée en plusieurs endroits suivant les Memoires les plus recents Par G. Sanson Geogr. prdinaire du Roy. A Paris Chez l'Autheur aux Galleries du Louvre Avec privilege de sa Maj.sté pour 20 Ans. 1669.

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual 1669 copper engraved map of Asia. Overall an unusual projection and centered on Tibet, the map depicts the entire continent of Asia from Greece to the Kurile Islands and from the Arctic Ocean to New Guinea, including parts of Europe and Africa. This represents the second edition of the Sanson map of Asia, with one notable difference being the depiction of Korea as an elongated peninsula, whereas in the first edition Korea was shown as an island. Other aspects of East Asian geography, however, remain fairly speculative. Hokkaido is illustrated as being attached to the mainland as part of a vast peninsula called Yupi (Sakhalin). Separated from the landmass by the narrow Strait of St. Vries is a mysterious landmass labeled as Ieco, a name which itself is commonly associated with Hokkaido. Here, Sanson has moved the toponymy further east and attached it to an oversized mapping of the Kuril Islands. It is also important to note the incomplete depiction of New Guinea.
 
Aprocryphal Lake Chiamay
 
Another important aspect of this map's cartography is the inclusion of the mythical Lake of Chiamay, here located in southeast Asia near the border with India and Tibet. Early cartographers postulated that such a lake must exist to source the four important Southeast Asian river systems: the Irrawaddy, the Dharla, the Chao Phraya, and the Brahmaputra. This lake began to appear in maps of Asia as early as the 16th century and persisted well into the mid-18th century. Its origins are unknown but may originate in a lost 16th century geography prepared by the Portuguese scholar Jao de Barros. It was also heavily discussed in the journals of Sven Hedin, who believed it to be associated with Indian legend that a sacred lake, Mansarovar, linked several of the holy subcontinent river systems. There are even records that the King of Siam led an invasionary force to take control of the lake in the 16th century. Nonetheless, the theory of Lake Chiamay was ultimately disproved and it disappeared from maps entirely by the 1760s.
 
This map was created by Nicolas Sanson and republished by his son Guillaume Sanson in 1669.

Date: 1669 ( dated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 58,6 x 42,8
 
Condition: Very strong and dark impression on goos paper. Paper with chains and wiremarks. Map old original colored. Small foxing. Small tears restored. Map professionally wahed and restored. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images. 

Mapmakers: Nicolas Sanson (1600 - 1667) and his descendants were the most influential French cartographers of the 17th century and laid the groundwork for the Golden Age of French Cartography. Sanson started his career as a historian where, it is said, he turned to cartography as a way to illustrate his historical studies. In the course of his research some of his fine maps came to the attention of King Louis XIII who, admiring the quality of his work, appointed Sanson Geographe Ordinaire du Roi. Sanson's duties in this coveted position included advising the king on matters of geography and compiling the royal cartographic archive. In 1644 he partnered with Pierre Mariette, an established print dealer and engraver, whose business savvy and ready capital enabled Sanson to publish an enormous quantity of maps. Sanson's corpus of some three hundred maps initiated the golden age of French mapmaking and he is considered the 'Father of French Cartography.' His work is distinguished as being the first of the 'Positivist Cartographers,' a primarily French school of cartography that valued scientific observation over historical cartographic conventions. The practice result of the is less embellishment of geographical imagery, as was common in the Dutch Golden Age maps of the 16th century, in favor of conventionalized cartographic representational modes. Sanson is most admired for his construction of the magnificent atlas Cartes Generales de Toutes les Parties du Monde. Sanson's maps of North America, Amerique Septentrionale (1650), Le Nouveau Mexique et La Floride (1656), and La Canada ou Nouvelle France (1656) are exceptionally notable for their important contributions to the cartographic perceptions of the New World. Both maps utilize the discoveries of important French missionaries and are among the first published maps to show the Great Lakes in recognizable form. Sanson was also an active proponent of the insular California theory, wherein it was speculated that California was an island rather than a peninsula. After his death, Sanson's maps were frequently republished, without updates, by his sons, Guillaume (1633 - 1703) and Adrien Sanson (? - 1708). Even so, Sanson's true cartographic legacy as a 'positivist geographer' was carried on by others, including Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, Guillaume De L'Isle, Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, and Pierre Duval.

Guillaume Sanson (1633 - 1703) was a French cartographer active in the latter part of the 17th century. He is the son of the legendary cartographer Nicolas Sanson (1600 - 1667), and, along with his brother Adrien Sanson (1639 - 1718), took over the family firm on his father's death. Like his father, Guillaume Louis XIV granted him the official title, Geographe Ordinaire du Roy. Much of his work after 1671 was published in collaboration with Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (c. 1632 - 1712). Although the continued to published new maps, particularly Guillaume Sanson, the firm began to lose prestige and market share. In 1692, the brothers sold their geographical archive to their nephew Pierre-Moulart Sanson (1670 - 1730), who published a map catalog in 1696 and reissued the Sanson atlas. After Pierre-Moulart's death, many of the surviving map plates were acquired by Gilles Robert de Vaugondy, setting the stage for another French cartographic dynasty.