Old Maps Collection
[Kaart van de kusten van Tonkin en Zuid-China]
Map of the coasts of Tonkin and South China
Vinckeboons, Joan, 1617-1670, cartographer
Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673, creator
JPEG 7656 x 4905, 14.3MB
Scale not given.
Physical Map Dimension (cm):
57 x 89 cm, on sheet 77 x 109 cm.
The original is a Atlas factice consisting of Joan Blaeu's 'Atlas Maior' and Van Der Hem's additions. Between 1662-1672 Joan Blaeu published his famous 'Atlas Maior' edited in Latin, French, Dutch, and Spanish, and, bound in nine to twelve volumes, depending on the edition. For over a hundred years, Blaeu's 'Atlas Maior' -with almost 600 maps and 3000 pages of text- remained the standard world atlas. Laurens van der Hem, an Amsterdam lawyer, had begun collecting maps and topographical drawings as early as 1645 and when the Latin edition of Blaeu's 'Atlas Maior' was published in 1662, he acquired a copy -in 11 volumes- which he used to make an even more ambitious collection of maps, topographical drawings and prints. Van der Hem arranged the sheets in the Atlas according to his own ideas, amplifying the volumes with more than 1800 maps, charts, townscapes, architectural prints, portraits, etc. Besides prints, the atlas also contains a wealth of drawings: maps, townscapes, seascapes, renderings of foreign people, among others always in the size of sheets from 'Atlas Maior' to maintain the harmony of the work -if too wide, they were folded in; if too small, they were enlarged, and coloured in such a way that the transition from original print to enlargement became invisible; if too high, they were reduced in format, or cut into pieces, and separately pasted on blank leaves. Among the most impressive of Van der Hem's additions are the set of four volumes of manuscript-maps and drawings, which were originally made for the East Indies Company -in which this map is included. The complete work resulted in a 50-volume atlas. When Van der Hem died his children inherited the atlas, his daughter Agatha kept the Atlas for many years. After Agatha's death the atlas was auctioned by Adriaan Moetjens in The Hague in 1730, the buyer was Prince Eugene of Savoie (1663-1736), stadtholder-general of the Austrian Netherlands and a known art-lover and collector. After Eugene's death in 1736 his widow sold the Atlas to Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who kept it in his Hofbibliothek, which is nowadays the Austrian National Library. In 2009 the HES & De Graaf Publishers made an 8 volume facsimile comprising volumes 35-45 of the original, limited edition of 100 sets. This nautical chart of the coasts of Tonkin and South China comes from said facsimile. In the original Atlas there are 120 Johannes Vingboons watercolours. As this was a navigation chart there are some buildings on the map that could aid in sailing. In the Hainan island is 'een witte Toren opt hooge landt' that most probably is the Doubing Pagoda -斗柄塔- built in 1625 as a tower for navigation due to many shipwrecks although superstitious locals believed that these were actually caused by demons haunting the area. On the Leizhou Peninsula there is another tower named 'Hoghe Tooren' which may refer to Dengyunta -登云塔- built in 1623, with 36.4m can be seen from the sea. The last one is in the Canton area and is named 'Alliet Een hooge Tooren' refering to the Lotus Pagoda -莲花塔- or Wenchang Pagoda built in 1612, a 8-corner brick-build architecture, 50m high, with 9 floors outside and 11 layers inside.
Original is a manuscript map by Johannes Vingboons from 'The Secret Atlas of the East India Company' in the 'Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem', 57 x 91 cm.
Title from provenance library.
There is a 16-point compass rose on the upper right corner of the map. It has a fleur-de-lis indicating north and a cross on the east point. It is colored blue, red and gold.
There are some buildings identifying cities in the chart, as is the case of Guangzhou and Macau among others.
Scale line on the bottom left corner both in red and green and red and blue interchangeably.
Bathymetric relief shown by soundings.
Map with grid.
Latitude line in yellow and white and red, blue and white interchangeably. Tropic of Cancer line in red.
Land masses and islands outlined in yellow, green and magenta.
Macao and its Surrounding.
Macao in Routes.
Place names and notes in Dutch with the tropic line in Latin.
Ausserer, K. Der Atlas Blaeu der Wiener National-Bibliothek, Beiträge zur historiche Geographie, p. 1-40
Fontaine Verwey, H. de la De Atlas van Mr Laurens van der Hem, Amstelodamum, 38, p. 85-89
Groot, E. de The Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem of the Austrian National Library
Horst, K. van der The Atlas Blaeu-Van Der Hem : history of the Atlas and the making of the facsimile
Hainan Sheng (China)
Guangdong Sheng (China)
Bd. 41:15, fol. 73-74, (14)
Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem : a facsimile-edition of the unique copy preserved in the Austrian National Library, Vienna.
Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673
Hem, Laurens van der, 1620-1678
Atlas Blaeu-Van der Hem : a facsimile-edition of the unique copy preserved in the Austrian National Library, Vienna
Provenance Call No.:
G 1015 B4 2009
Provenance Call No.: