Robert de Vaugondy: Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes | Extrait d'une Carte Japonoise de l'Univers
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Cartographer:
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Robert de Vaugondy
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Title:
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Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes | Extrait d'une Carte Japonoise de l'Univers
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Date:
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1772
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Published:
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Paris
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Width:
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15 inches / 39 cm
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Height:
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11 inches / 28 cm
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Map ref:
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AMER2331
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Description:
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This fascinating pair of maps compares a French map of the North Pacific by Philippe Buache from 1752 with a supposed Japanese map of the same region, copied by Engelbert Kaempfer in 1690-2.
Buache's map was published to illustrate the latest discoveries in Siberia, the Bering Strait, and along the northwest coast of America. The map is riddled with amusing errors, including the large 'Sea of the West' which appears on many French maps of this period and the large peninsula which appears in the place of Alaska. Buache was a fervent supporter of a large 'Sea of the West’ as it kept the French government’s hope of a Northwest Passage alive.
The Japanese map is from a manuscript by Engelbert Kaempfer, a German doctor who travelled to the Far East in the 1680's and spent two years living in Japan from 1690-2. His account is the first European description of Japan to be based on first-hand knowledge. Kaempfer died before his manuscript could be published, but fortunately for historians it was discovered by Hans Sloane, the wealthy antiquarian whose collection forms the basis of the British Museum and British Library.
Sloane had the manuscript translated and published in 1727. The map published here was copied by Kaempfer from a Japanese map of the known universe. It shows a large, misshapen Japan located in the centre of the North Pacific, not far from the coast of America, the general shape of which is recognizable. The map is now believed to be a compilation of Japanese and European knowledge rather than a purely Japanese creation.
These two maps were originally published separately by Buache in the annals of the Paris Académie des Sciences to support his theoretical mapping of the Pacific Northwest. They were part of a long-running debate between the two great French cartographers of the age, Vaugondy & Buache. Vaugondy denied the existence of the Sea of the West, as well as the Northwest Passage, claims ultimately proven correct by James Cook in the 1770s. This example with the two maps printed together on one page was published in a supplement to Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie describing the great debate two decades later
[AMER2331] |