| Summary: | 18th century Contains two maps on one leaf. Written in pencil in lower right corner: ”Diderot L60 1752. TOP MAP DESCRIPTION Copper engraving handcolored with watercolor. Relief shown pictorially. Outline color. Printed at top of map above Arctic Circle: ”Carte Des Nouvelle Découvertes dressée par Phil. Buache Pr. Géogr? Du Roi présentée á l’Acad? Des Sciences le g Aout 1752 et approuvée dans son assemble du 6 Septembre suivant.” Printed above upper right border: ”Suppl. 6e Carte.” Shows eastern edge of Siberia, China, the Kamchatka peninsula, the northern tip of Japan, Alaska as “Puchochotskes,” and northwest North America stretching all the way from Canada to New Orleans in southern Louisiana and Labrador in the northeast. Shows routes of exploration by the Russians in 1741 under the command of Captain Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov. Of note, Alaska is grossly misshapen as is the size of many bodies of water throughout northern North America. The mythical “Mer de l’Ouest” or Sea of the West appears here with two entrances: one allegedly discovered by Juan de Fuca and the other by Martin d’Aguilar. Quivira and Teguiaio are shown just south and east of the Sea of the West. The Mississippi River is shown flowing south past New Orleans. A large lake called “Lac de Valasco” is shown just north and east of Alaska. An island in the north Pacific Ocean is included called “Kia-y-tao” with the description: “Kia-y-tao des Chinois et des Japannois qu l’on pretend etre la Terre de J. De Gama.” Also includes “Ieso” or the “Isle d’Ieso” just north of Nippon. Scale: c.a. 1:25,000,000. BOTTOM MAP DESCRIPTION Copper engraving handcolored with watercolor. Outline color. Printed at top of map in Arctic Circle: ”Extrait d’une Carte Japanoise de l’Univers apportée en Europe par Kaempfer et depose dans le cabinet de feu Mr. Han-Sloane president de la Société royale de Londres. Printed beneath title: ”Dans tous ces Pais du Nord, il fait Jour depuis la Seconde Lune Jusqu’ á la 8e. et Nuit depuis la 8e. jusqu’ a la Seconde. Printed in the left border of the map is an explanation of the extract map by the Japanese: ”Extrait de Kaempfer. Sur les Pais que les Japonnois marquent sur leurs Cartes au Nord du Japon Liv….” Printed in the right border of the map: ”Avertissement. On voit dans cette Carte un mélange des idées Géographiques des Japnnois et des CHinois avec les connoissances que les Européens leur ont porté. Aussi comprend t’elle plusieurs Noms Chinois que l’on a pensé devoir marquer ici….Les Noms de Pais ou de Rivieres precedes d’une Etoile ont été ajoutés pour aider a la Comparaison.” Printed in the northern Pacific Ocean next to North America: ”Kaempfer (Liv. I. ch. 4) parle d’une Navigation des Japannois a l’Est du Japon après avoir beaucoup souffert entre le 40e et 503. degré de Latitude, ils reconnurent un tres grand Continent qui s’entendoir beaucoup plus loin vers le Nord-Ouest.” Shows Japan as a large mass of islands much closer to North America than in reality. Also shows the island “Kia-y-tao” or “Terre de J. De Gama.” Uses a combination of French as well as Westernized versions of Japanese names. For instance, China is labeled as “Ta-Tcing” and Korea is shown as “Coree.” Some areas have been labeled and starred in order for map users to understand different geographical areas including Korea, California and Kamchatka which is here outlined in dashes rather than drawn and outlined in color. 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). These maps were first published in a 1777 supplement edition to Didier Robert de Vaugondy’s “Encyclopedie” (Phillips, 627, no. 1195). The top map based on the work of Philippe Buache is meant to contrast with the bottom map based on a Japanese chart brought to Hans Sloane by Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716), a German who spent time in the “open” port of Nagasaki during Japan’s isolationist period as part of his work for the Dutch East India Company (Moreland and Bannister, 269-70). Both maps provide a strange visual account of northwest North America. Buache’s map, for instance, shows a grossly misshapen Alaska and a large version of the mythical Sea of the West while the Japanese map shows Japan as incredibly large and quite close to North America. Buache’s map also 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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