1719 Chatelain Dramatic Wall Map (1 results)

Very good. Folds as issued. Four panels, joined by publisher. Very clean with a strong dark impression. Size 31 x 56 Inches. One of the most spectacularly decorative maps of the 18th century, this is Henri Chatelain's magnificent 1719 map of the Americas and the Pacific. This sumptuously engraved map is centered on the American continent but extends west to include all of the Pacific as far as Beijing (Peking), China and Australia, and eastward to include much of Europe and the western half of Africa. Longitudinally it extends from the Hudson Bay to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. The map is graphically rich with a wealth of lush inset maps and vignette illustrations throughout. The whole is further embellished with copious annotations offering Chatelain's insights on local traditions, flora and fauna, political commentary, and notes on trade. A Closer Look Cartographically, Chatelain based this map heavily on De Fer's map of 1713. There is much of interest throughout. This map was issued just as the world was being opened to international commerce and Chatelain has much to say on the subject. Chatelain doubtless imagined himself on the cusp of an age of discovery and exploration unlike any before imagined - and he was right! Still, one cannot ignore his hopeful thinking. Here both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are remarkably foreshortened, suggesting that passage and trade between these widely divided continents to be a matter of ease. The routes of the many explorers who made these passages are noted with their ships illustrated. These include Columbus, Vespucci, Magellan, Drake, Schouten, La Salle, and Dampier, among others, all of whom are further lionized by a serious of medallions filing the unexplored northwestern quadrants of America. Vignette Work The elaborate decorative vignette work, too, contributes to Chatelain's message. In North America he borrows from Herman Moll to illustrate the American fur trade (with a backdrop of Niagara Falls) and the seemingly boundless cod fisheries off the Grand Banks. The even more elaborate illustrations in the southern quadrants are equally suggestive of the wealth to be had by venturing not just to the Americas but into the Pacific and thence to Asia. The vignettes include illustrations of tribal life, rich mines, overflowing hunting grounds, native industry (such as the grinding of manioc), and of course whaling. Among this rich imagery are smaller maps and plans detailing the Spice Islands (Moluques), the apparently easily traversable Isthmus of Panama, and the port of Acapulco in Mexico from which the Spanish galleons set sail for Manila, as well as the bustling ports of Baldavia, Veracruz, Conception, Buenos Aires, Havana, and San Sabastian, among others. Among these, of course, we cannot ignore the many dangers illustrated in the form of vicious animals, unfriendly indigenous populations, and one particularly grizzly image of human sacrifice before a stylized Aztec pyramid. Insular California This is importantly one of the first maps to bring into question the popular convention of rendering California as an island. While California is here presented roughly on the Luke Foxe model popularized by Nicholas Sanson in 1657, one notes that the northern portions of the island are ghosted in an expression of uncertainty. Around this time, word of the Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino's discoveries in and around Baja were beginning to circulate in learned circles. Although the myth of an insular California was slow to disappear, Chatelain here notes Que Quelques Modernes Croyent être attache au continent de l'Amérique par la Partie Septent. What some moderns believe to be attached to the continent of America by the northern part. Pacific and Australia Chatelain's rendering of the Pacific is of considerable interest. The wildly overlarge mapping of the Solomon Islands, referencing the navigations of Mendana and Quiros, stand out. Australia itself, appearing here as Nouvelle Ho.