D'Anville's maps of China
By D'ANVILLE, [Jean Baptiste Bourguignon] , 1776
£4,500
BUY

Memoire de M. D'Anville, Premier Geographe du Roi Des Academies Royales des Belles-Lettres, & des Sciences. Sur La Chine. [WITH:] Considérations générales, sur l’étude et les connaissances que demande la composition des ouvrages de géographie.

Ephemera
  • Author: D'ANVILLE, [Jean Baptiste Bourguignon]
  • Publication place: A Pe-Kin, et se trouvé a Paris
  • Publisher: for the Author; Lambert
  • Publication date: 1776 and 1777.
  • Physical description: Octavo (205 by 120mm), two works bound in one volume, title, [2]-47pp, light spotting [AND] title, [2]-111pp., light spotting, marbled edges, pink silk marker, contemporary polished calf gilt, spine with three black morocco labels, lettered in gilt.

    Collation: A-C8; A-G8.
  • Dimensions: 205 by 120mm. (8 by 4.75 inches).
  • Inventory reference: 17504

Notes

First editions of two works by the great French cartographer d’Anville, who was engaged by the Jesuits to produce three maps based on the findings of the Jesuit missionaries to China, for inclusion in Pierre Du Halde’s ‘Description géographique… de l’Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise’ (1735). These were subsequently revised for the ‘Nouvel atlas de la Chine’ (1737). In the ‘Mémoire’ he provided a comprehensive explanation for his methodology in preparing the maps, the sources he had chosen to draw from and an overview of earlier expeditions undertaken to China and Tibet.

Bibliography

  1. Cordier, Sinica 187
  2. Lust 154
  3. Lowendahl 585

Image gallery

/