Philippe Vandermaelen: Asie - Sindy. No. 81 [Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, Pakistan - Rajasthan, India]
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Cartographer:
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Philippe Vandermaelen
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Title:
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Asie - Sindy. No. 81 [Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, Pakistan - Rajasthan, India]
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Date:
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1827
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Published:
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Brussels
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Width:
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20 inches / 51 cm
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Height:
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19 inches / 49 cm
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Map ref:
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IC1850
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Description:
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Early and detailed lithographic map of the Pakistani provinces of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, and part of neighbouring state Rajasthan in northwestern India.
The map geographically encompasses Balochistan from Nushki and Kalāt south to the Arabian Sea. Following the coast from Ormara to show the site of modern-day Pakistani capital, Karachi and south to (established in 1729) which is partly obscured by hatchuring for the topography of the mountains - which appears to be spelt “ … Kulachy” (likely a European phonetic translation).
To the east, the map extends across Sindh to the border into the northwestern Indian state Rajasthan, and north to southern Punjab, detailing the major city of Hyderabad (in central Sindh) and the area where the city of Multan (Moultan) is located in southern Punjab.
The topography is shown using a method of hachuring, fantastically illustrating the mountainous parts of the provinces, particularly on the border of Balochistan and Sindh.. The River Indus is shown from its delta, north to its fork with the River Chennab and the Sulaiman Mountain Range near modern-day Dera Ghazi Khan.
Philippe Vandermaelen
Philippe Vandermaelen was born in Brussels in 1795 and, at the age of 21, inherited a fortune from his father who had been a successful soap manufacturer. Financially independent, Vandermaelen was able to devote his life to the study of geography and in 1829 he founded a geographical institute in Brussels.
Vandermaelen's most important work, entitled "Atlas Universel", was an enormous atlas consisting of over 400 separate map sheets covering the world on the huge scale of 1:1,6 million. Each map sheet was designed using a special projection so that, if the owner of the maps so wished, they could all be joined together to form a globe with a diameter of 7.75 meters (This globe was actually built in Vandermaelen's institute in Brussels). The map sheets were printed using the process of lithography, which was an early use of this printing method for map making, and were then usually delicately hand coloured to emphasise boundaries and outlines. The complete atlas took only 3 years to make, a very short time for such a large project, and it was sold in instalments over a two year period from 1825.
Examples of Vandermaelen's map sheets are of great interest to the collector for a number of reasons. Firstly their large scale. The sections depict many of the remoter regions of the world on a scale previously unknown or unattainable. Particularly for the collector of Americana and Australasia, the sheets covering the western United States and Pacific respectively, where exploration was still in very early stages, are unique in this respect. Their historical insets, descriptions and statistics, along with their great visual clarity, make Vandermaelen's maps fascinating and valuable antique documents which also have superb visual appeal.
Original hand colour. [IC1850] |