| Summary: | 18th century Copper engraving. Relief shown pictorially. Contains watermark. Outline color. Printed at top of map above Arctic Circle: "Carte des parties Nord et est de L'Asie qui comprend Les Cotes De La Russie Asiatique Le Kamschatka, Le Jesso, Et Les Isles Du Japon dressée en 1764 par M***." Printed above upper right border: "Suppl. 2e Carte." Printed along bottom of inset maps III and IV: "Ces quatre Supplémens ont rapport a la Carte de l'Amérique indiquée 1re." Shows north and east Asia including Russia, Tartary, China, Korea, and Japan as well as part of eastern Europe, and the northwest tip of North America. Includes four inset maps labeled with roman numerals as: "I. Partie Nord-ouest de l'aAmerique. II. Nouvelle Grenade. III. Région des Conibas et pays voisins. IV. Estremités de la partie occidentale." Of note, the Strait of Anian or "Detroit d'Anian" is depicted as separating northwest North America, labeled as the mythical land, "Anian," from Russia. The mythical land of Iesso or "Jesso" is shown north of Japan. Inset map I of northwest North America shows California and the mythical land of Quivira as well as Japan. Inset map II of northwest Mexico is labeled as "Nova Granada" and shows Mexico's Gulf of California as "Mer Vermeille." Inset map III shows part of central California and areas further west and north, labeled as Zugbara and Nova Granata. Inset map IV shows the far northwestern part of North America, labeled as Anian Regnum, Quivira Regnum and Tolm Regnum. Mountains, forests and major rivers are shown. Scale: c.a. 1:25,000,000. Didier Robert de Vaugondy (1723-1786) was Royal Geographer and Censor in France (Tooley, 541). The Robert de Vaugondy family was descended from the Nicolas Sanson family and had much of his map plates. The family combined his plates with those of Hubert Jaillot's plates after his death in 1712. Combining the map plates and thoroughly revising the earlier engravings, the family created the "Atlas Universal" (1750-1757) (Moreland and Bannister, 136). Didier's work includes: "Mexico" (1749), "Maps in Atlas Universal" (1750-1757), "Nouvel Atlas portative" (1784), and "America Septentrionale" (1761). His atlases were later reissued by Delamarche (Tooley, 541). This map was first published in a 1777 supplement edition to Denis Diderot's "Encyclopedie" (Phillips, 627, no. 1195; Pedly, 201, no. 406). The map is one of ten maps published in the supplement meant to describe the broad range in which maps had shown the Northwest Passage and the area of the world between northeastern Asia and northwest North America (Wagner, 342, no. 637). This map shows the land of "Iesso" or "Yezo," a place allegedly lying north of Japan. Later identified as Hokkaido, explorers in the seventeenth century were unsure of its nature. The Russians attempted to discern whether Yezo was indeed an island or part of Asia with a number of expeditions in the seventeenth century. Under the reign of Peter the Great, the explorers were able to chart Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands. In the 1780s, a French expedition sailed between Yezo and Korea, and then, through the Kuriles (Tooley and Bricker, 130). Source(s): Moreland, Carl and David Bannister. "Antique Maps: A Collector's Handbook." New York: Longman Group, Ltd., 1983. Pedley, Mary Spoonberg. "Bel Et Utile: The Work of the Robert De Vaugondy Family of Mapmakers." Hertsfordshire: Map Collector Publications Ltd., 1992. Phillips, Philip Lee, ed. "List of Geographical Atlases." Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909. Tooley, Ronald Vere. "Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers." Hertfordshire: Map Collector Publications Limited, 1979. Tooley, Ronald Vere and Charles Bricker. "Landmarks of Mapmaking: An Illustrated Survey of Maps and Mapmakers." Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1968. Wagner, Henry R. "The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America to the year 1800 Volume 2." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937.
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