Acquired From: Leen Helmink
Colouring: Uncoloured
Condition: Very Good
Confirmed: No
Date Acquired: 1/5/2023
Dealers ID No.: 19189
Description: This map, Route maritime de Brest à Siam, et de Siam à Brest ("Sea Route from Brest to Siam, and from Siam to Brest"), charts the outward and return voyages of the French scientific and diplomatic mission to Siam (modern-day Thailand) undertaken between 1685 and 1686. Published in 1687, it represents a collaboration between Vincenzo Coronellirenowned Venetian cartographer, Franciscan friar, and founder of the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonautiand Jean-Baptiste Nolin, royal geographer to King Louis XIV.nCommissioned by Louis XIV, the mission was both a diplomatic overture to King Narai of Siam and an ambitious scientific enterprise. Accompanying the French envoy, the Chevalier de Chaumont, were six Jesuit mathematicians dispatched to conduct astronomical observations in Siam and, ultimately, China. Their route, traced on this map with daily positions, follows the established Brouwer Route across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to Southeast Asia.nThe maps title cartouche identifies the scientific purpose of the voyage, being based on the observations of six Jesuit Fathers, sent by the King of France as his mathematicians to the Indies and China. Inset plans depict key locations visited: Ayutthaya (Siams capital), Batavia (modern Jakarta), and Louvo (modern Lopburi), where the Jesuits established an observatory and determined local longitude during a lunar eclipse on 11 December 1685. Additional notes detail natural phenomena encountered along the route, such as bird migrations, ocean currents, and tropical storms.nCoronelli also integrates Dutch geographic discoveries along the western coast of Nouvelle Hollande (Australia), including::nDirk Hartog (1616) t Landt van Eendracht (Land of Eendracht), Western AustralianFrederick de Houtman (1619) coast of Western AustralianThe Leeuwin (1622) Cape Leeuwin, Western AustralianGerrit Frederikszoon de Witt (1628) G.F. de Wits Land, Western AustralianA large decorative cartouche across Africa is crowned with mythical and exotic creaturesa gryphon, lion, elephant, bird, and apeset above an elevation view of Table Mountain and a detailed plan of Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope.nProduced in the immediate aftermath of Coronellis commission to create two monumental globes for the French court, this map exemplifies his unique synthesis of scientific cartography, diplomatic record, and visual spectacle. It stands as a testament to the ambitions of Louis XIVs global strategy and Coronellis position at the forefront of European mapmaking in the late seventeenth century.
Engraver: Loon, Hendrick van
First published: Separate Publication. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Nolin, 1687
Image Size (cm): 73×44.5
Mapmaker: Coronelli, Vincenzo (1650-1718)
Notes: Purchase details
Price: 8000
Primary Category: Africa
Purchase Reference: Ledger
Rarity: R2 Very rare – one or two copies appear on the market
Sheet size (cm): 75.5×46.5
Technique: Copper Engraving
This state: 1687
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