John Ogilby
(1600 - 1676)
Asia, the First Part. Being an Accurate Description of Persia, and the Several Provinces Thereof. The Vast Empire of the Great Mogol, and Other Parts of India
John Ogilby, Asia, the First Part. Being an Accurate Description of Persia, and the Several Provinces Thereof. The Vast Empire of the Great Mogol, and Other Parts of India, Printed by the Author at his House in White-Friers, 1673
Title printed in red and black, engraved additional pictorial title, 28 engraved plates (12 double-page), 5 engraved maps (4 double-page, one large folding), 30 large engraved illustrations in the text, without B1 (blank, as usual) and 2M4 ("Directions"); contemporary blind-panelled calf, rebacked to match, retaining original gilt red morocco spine label
42 x 26 cm
DIVINE FORMS AND IMPERIAL FRAMES: HINDU AVATARS AND MUGHAL COURTS IN OGILBY’S ASIA (1673)
John Ogilby’s Asia, the First Part (1673) is one of the most ambitious and visually arresting English folios of the seventeenth century, presenting a sweeping geographical, political, and cultural account of Safavid Persia and Mughal India. Commissioned under royal patronage and printed in Ogilby’s own house at White-Friars, this monumental volume combines early modern ethnographic curiosity with the visual rhetoric of imperial grandeur—rendered through rich copperplate engravings, detailed maps, and ornate typographic design.
Appointed "His Majesty’s Cosmographer and Geographic Printer" by Charles II, Ogilby was a polymath and former court dancing master who redirected his talents to translation, travel literature, and cartography. This first edition, issued at the height of England’s Restoration-era appetite for global knowledge, devotes extensive attention to the splendour of the Mughal court, the social customs of Hindustan, and the structure of Persian provinces. Yet beyond its political and cartographic content, the work is especially notable for its remarkable series of engraved illustrations depicting Hindu deities, avatars of Vishnu, and ritual iconography—making it one of the earliest known English-language publications to visually represent the Hindu pantheon.
Adapted from continental sources (principally Olfert Dapper’s Asia, Amsterdam, 1672), these images present a vivid and often theatrical interpretation of Indian religion. Avatars such as Narasimha, Matsya, Kurma, and Varaha are shown in dynamic poses, combining classical European engraving techniques with exoticized renderings that reflect the seventeenth-century European gaze. These mythological plates are interspersed with scenes of Indian processions, ceremonial gatherings, temples, and city views—most famously that of Surat, then a major trading port of the English East India Company.
Ogilby’s text, composed in flowing English prose and adorned with elaborate red-and-black printed titles, offers both an encyclopaedic narrative and a symbolic assertion of England’s growing geographic literacy and commercial reach. The engraved “General Mapp of Asia” by James Lamb, dedicated to the East India Company, sets the stage for a new vision of the East—at once authoritative and aesthetic.
The volume’s structure reflects the encyclopaedic ambition of the age: from natural history and political hierarchy to court protocol and spiritual beliefs, every aspect of Persian and Indian life is translated into a typographic and pictorial spectacle. Though later volumes of the projected series (on China, Japan, and Southeast Asia) were never realised, Asia, the First Part remains a singular artefact of English cartographic imagination and imperial desire.
Provenance Inscriptions such as “Ex Libris Honorabilis Edwardi Strafford” suggest elite English readership, perhaps among the merchant aristocracy whose fortunes were increasingly tied to Asian trade. Today, the volume stands as a foundational source not only for early British conceptions of the East but also for the transmission—and transformation—of Hindu religious iconography in early modern European print culture.
A compelling intersection of myth and map, text and image, Ogilby’s Asia offers not merely a survey of distant lands, but a mirror to the ambitions, fascinations, and anxieties of the world that produced it. In its marriage of sacred iconography and imperial cartography, it remains as relevant to the history of cross-cultural imagination as it is to the serious collector of early illustrated travel books.
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