Important Notice

Full title: Partie de la nouvelle grande carte des Indes Orientales contenat les terres du Mogol, Surate, Malabar, Cormandel, Bengale, Aracan, Pegu, Siam, Camboje, Tonquin, & une partie de la Chine. Dressée avec soin, sur plusieurs cartes manuscrites, par un habile connoisseur; & Publiee

(Translation: Part of the New Great Maps of the East Indies, Containing the Mughal Lands, Surat, Malabar, Coromandel, Bengal, Aracan, Pegu, Siam,... Full title: Partie de la nouvelle grande carte des Indes Orientales contenat les terres du Mogol, Surate, Malabar, Cormandel, Bengale, Aracan, Pegu, Siam, Camboje, Tonquin, & une partie de la Chine. Dressée avec soin, sur plusieurs cartes manuscrites, par un habile connoisseur; & Publiee

(Translation: Part of the New Great Maps of the East Indies, Containing the Mughal Lands, Surat, Malabar, Coromandel, Bengal, Aracan, Pegu, Siam, Cambodia, Tonquin & Part of China. Drawn on Multiple Handwritten Cards by a Skilful Connoisseur & Published)

A FRENCH MAP REIMAGINED IN DUTCH COPPER: A COLLECTOR’S FRAGMENT FROM ELWE’S INDES ORIENTALES AFTER DE L’ISLE

This map was published decades after the Dutch dominance in the region and the heydays of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The titles of the maps reveal that an accomplished "connoisseur" derived them from multiple manuscript maps.

This is the northwest sheet of a four-sheet map of Southern and Southeast Asia, with each map containing its own title and standalone borders. This finely engraved late 18th-century map, issued by Dutch publisher Jan Barend Elwe, presents a detailed view of the Indian subcontinent and adjacent territories. It is based directly on the seminal cartographic work of Guillaume De l’Isle, whose 1723 map of the Indes Orientales helped to establish a more scientifically grounded and politically nuanced geography of Asia.

Elwe, who worked out of Amsterdam in the 1790s, was known for republishing high-quality maps with updated hand-colouring and numbering, using acquired or copied plates. The present example preserves De l’Isle’s ambitious regional coverage—from Mer des Indes and Golfe de Bengale to the mountainous regions of Grand Tibet, Royaume de Bengale, and Royaume de Siam.

The level of political segmentation and careful hydrographic detail indicates its use not just as a geographical tool but also as a record of the evolving colonial and commercial interests of the period. French-language place names dominate, consistent with Enlightenment-era cartographic practice in both Paris and Amsterdam.

This particular issue is from Elwe’s rare and now highly collectible Atlas, published circa 1792, and remains an important artefact of the late Dutch cartographic tradition, bridging classical French geography and the commercial Dutch reissue market.

NON-EXPORTABLE

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