India Orientalis

Description

hand-coloured copper engraving, with decorative border, title at lower left.

EXTREMELY RARE map from “Geographisch Handtbuch”. A very attractive early map of South East Asia, stretching from Persia in the north west to New Guinea in the South-east The coastlines are recognisable but approximate. Part of the west coast of North America is shown at top right, showing lack of knowledge of the size of the Pacific ar the time. The map includes the mythical land of “Beach” from Marco Polo’s reports and extends to California, where Quivira and two other cities are shown. Japan is in its “Kite” configuration.. Generally, there are many similarities with the larger Ortelius map of the same title. The Philippines is shown still without Luzon. Matthaus Quad was a German cartographer also based in Cologne, which, at the time was one of the centres for German cartography.