| Summary: | 18th century; Copper engraving handcolored with watercolor. Full color. Relief shown pictorially. Contains compass rose above tropic of cancer east of Japan. Printed in lower left corner in cartouche: "Asia Cum Omnibus Imperiis Provinciis, Statibus Et Insulis Iuxta Observationes Recentissimas Et Accuratissimas Correcta Et Adornata Per Matthaeum Seutter, Sac. Caes. Maj. Geogr. Aug. Vindel." Printed in upper right corner in cartouche: "Lector Benevole. Quisquis novam hanc tabulam perlustrare dignaris incolarum Asiae perpende miram ac miseram conditionem ad Solis Orbum…" Printed along bottom center: Cum Gratia Privil. S. R. I. Vicariatg. In partib. Rheni. Sveviae et Juris Francinici." Written in ink in upper right corner above border: "85 [crossed out]. 76." Written in pencil in upper right corner above border: "76." Depicts Asia, part of eastern and southern Europe, part of northeastern Africa and the Middle East, part of northern Australia including the Gulf of Carpentaria as "Nova Hollandia", and part of Papua New Guinea. Of note, the mythical Lake Chiang Mai or "Chiamay" is shown just north of India. Another mythical unnamed lake is shown as the source of many rivers in Siam (Thailand), including the Siam, Pegu, Cosmin and Caor rivers. The mythical island north of Japan, Yeso or "Terra Yedso" is also shown with the note "quae juxta recntiss. Geographorum observationem continens aut Iaponiae coherens peninsula esse per hibettur." Also noteworthy is a land just east of Yedso labeled as "Compagnie Land" with a note about Juan de Gama's exploration, "Littus dedectum per Don Iean de Gama cum e China in novam Hispaniam navigaret." An island chain north of the Philippines labeled as Archipelagus S. Lazari is shown. Geographical notes appear throughout. Depicts major rivers, lakes, places, forests and mountains. Several oriental figures surround the title cartouche in the lower left corner along with animals including a horse, a lion and an elephant. Scale: c.a. 1:17,500,000. Georg Mathaus Seutter (1678-1756) was a map publisher and cartographer from Nuremberg who set up shop in Augsburg. After an apprenticeship with J. B. Homann in 1697, he began working in Augsburg and was eventually appointed Geographer to Imperial Court. Throughout his lifetime, he competed with his old mentor and worked closely with his son-in-law to put out a collection of town plans. His works include "Atlas Germanicus" (c. 1720), "Atlas Geographicus" (1725), "Atlas Novus" (1728), "Grosser Atlas" (c. 1735), "Atlas novus sive tabulae geographicae totius orbis" (c. 1741), and "Atlas Minor" (1744). After his death, his son, Albrecht Karl, continued the business (Moreland and Bannister, 87-8; Tooley, "Dictionary of Mapmakers," 557). Maps of southeast Asia during this period were generally based on explorers' accounts and maps as well as cartographic speculation from previous centuries. For instance, reports of modern-day Taiwan repeatedly appeared in sailors' accounts as a site of shipwrecks. The legendary Lake Chiang Mai frequently appears in China as the source of several major rivers (Suárez, 165-9). The land of "Iesso" or "Yezo" was an island 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. National Library of Australia. Online Catalog Record. Accessed 11 May 2009. 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.
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