Rare Map:
Nouvelle Carte D'une Grande Partie de la Presqu'Isle des Indes en deca du Gange . . . 1737

Map Maker: Jean Baptiste Bourguignon D'Anville
Paris / 1737

A scarce map of the southern part of India, published by D'Anville and engraved by Delahaye.

This is one of the earliest maps to accurately detail the interior of Southern India, depicting the subcontinent below the 16th degree of latitiude. Features are the great Indian states of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, Mysore, Madura, Tanjore, Cannara, Marava and Travancore. A legend at bottom left identifies "important locations," the residences of princes and governors, churches and temples.

Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville (1697-1782) based his map on the surveys of the Jesuit cartographer Jean-Venant Bouchet (1655-1732). Bouchet had first travelled to Asia with the French embassy to Siam in 1688, but the deteriorating political situation soon forced him to leave the for India. Over the next 30 years, Bouchet walked the countryside of Southern India, making careful surveys. In 1719, he dispatched his manuscript maps to France, which were recognized as revolutionary, as they contained the first accurate depiction of the interior of Southern India, especially the Deccan Plateau, within the mountains of the Eastern and Western Ghats.

In honor of its Jesuit sources, the map is adorned with the Jesuit symbol, included in the cartouche.

Source: Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps