Attractive English edition of d’Anville’s important map of Asia, among the most accurate presentations of Arabia at the time.
First Part of Asia being Turkey, Arabia, Persia most of India and Tartary Performed by the Sr D Anville…Revised and Improved by Mr Bolton MDCCLV.
$850
In stock
Description
This large, finely-detailed map of Southwestern Asia extends from Turkey and the Arabian peninsula in the west, to Tibet and all of India in the east. It was based on d’Anville’s important 1751 map, amended by Solomon Bolton for the English market, and engraved on two sheets by R.W. Seale for Malachy Postlethweyt’s Dictionary of Trade & Commerce.
The map is both an attractive display piece and an interesting view of the cartography of Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, and India in the the mid-18th century, a time in which the British Empire was the dominant power in much of this region, especially in the Indian subcontinent following the East India Company’s conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
Tibbetts considered the d’Anville map upon which this based to be the first modern map of Arabia. This view was based not only on the rich amount of information included on the map, including tribal names, desert routes, and semi-permanent watercourses — but also on information not included on the map. For centuries, mapmakers had filled Arabia with spurious mountain ranges, lakes, and cartographic myths. D’Anville, and with updates from Bolton, have instead provided as accurate a picture of Arabia cultural and physical geography as was possible at the time.
Cartographer(s):
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (born in Paris July 11, 1697 – January 28, 1782) was a geographer and cartographer who greatly improved the standards of map-making. His maps of ancient geography, characterized by careful, accurate work and based largely on original research, are especially valuable. He left unknown areas of continents blank and noted doubtful information as such; compared to the lavish maps of his predecessors, his maps looked empty.
Malachy PostlethwaytMalachy Postlethwayt (1707 – 1767) was a British economic writer, best known for his monumental dictionary of trade and commerce, the acclaimed Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, released as two installments between 1751 and 1755.
R.W. Seale Solomon BoltonCondition Description
Some creasing; map image bright and clear.
References
Tibbetts #281.
