This very attractive map of China and the Korean peninsula is from Jean Baptiste Du Halde’s account. The work was first published as the ‘Description Geographique … de la Chine’ in Paris 1735, which was closely followed by this Dutch edition in 1737. Du Halde was a Jesuit priest and confessor to Louis XIV. For many years he studied the Jesuit reports being sent back to Paris and published this magnificent four volume work in 1735. The maps accompanying the work were produced by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville the noted cartographer of the day. One of the main cartographic sources was the Chinese woodblock atlas known as the Kangxi which was completed 1718-19. This Dutch edition was issued as the ‘Nouvel Atlas de la Chine’. The book quickly became the principal cartographic authority on China in the eighteenth century.

This map is decorated with a very elaborate pictorial title cartouche. It depicts the Emporer Kangxi presiding over the survey and two Fathers with a mounted armed escort investigating a farm settlement, his buildings and cattle. The scale cartouche is adorned by two wolf hunters. The whole is engraved by Gerard Kondet (Condet), one of a noted family of engravers. For this map’s production d’Anville (1697-1782) used ones prepared by Jesuit missionaries and commissioned by Emporer Kangxi who ordered a survey of the country in 1708-1716. The maps extends far enough to encompass all of modern day China taking in Tibet and Kashgar to the west, Mongous and in the north and Mantcheoux to the north east. Inner Mongolia and Manchuria are also depicted. The finished map is the first accurate cartographic depiction of the region available in the western world.

It is also notable for recording the Korean peninsula with a level of accuracy for the first time. By the end of the seventeenth century much of China was mapped by western society but access to the Korean peninsula was strictly controlled. The Jesuits were obliged to rely on Chinese or Korean sources for information. “An agent of the Kangxi Emperor, referred to as the ‘Tartar lord’, sent on a diplomatic mission to Seoul, was able to take limited measurements surreptitiously. He obtained a copy of a Korean map from the imperial palace and [Father Jean-Baptiste] Regis later adjusted it with the agent’s geodetic observations. The resulting map of Korea became part of the comprehensive atlas of the Chinese Empire and surrounding territories produced for the emperor by the Jesuits. Known as the Kangxi atlas, it was issued several times in small printings in China and brought to Paris where Du Halde …” (Nebenzahl).

D’Anville is said to have produced his first map at the age 15 but it was his maps for Du Halde which gained him notoriety for the first time. In the developing tradition of French cartography they are renowned for their attention to detail and accuracy. D’Anville followed de L’Isle as cartographer to the King. His vast collection of cartographic material survives today. Chang ‘China in European Maps’ pl. 44; Nebenzahl ‘Mapping Korea, a challenge to early mapmakers’, in ‘Mappae Antiquae Liber Amicorum Gunter Schilder’ pp. 167-74; Shirley ‘Atlases in the BL’ T.Hald 3a no. 1; Yee ‘Cartography in China’ in ‘The History of Cartography. Volume 2, Book 2’.