Asia Noviter Delineata

Circa 1617–1630

Original hand-coloured copper engraving on paper

Print size: 16.25 x 22.25 in (41.5 x 56.2 cm)
Sheet size: 18.25 x 23.75 in (46.5 x 60.5 cm)

Asia noviter delineata — a celebrated Dutch Golden Age map with costume borders, city prospects, and rich allegorical embellishment

This celebrated Dutch Golden Age map of Asia, engraved after Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s landmark 1608 wall map and first issued in atlas form in 1617, ranks among the most influential and visually elaborate continental maps of the early seventeenth century. It was produced at a moment when Amsterdam stood at the apex of global cartographic publishing and maritime intelligence.

Blaeu’s authority was institutional as well as artistic. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) maintained one of Europe’s most closely guarded hydrographic archives, supplying its fleets with proprietary charts vital to navigation and empire. The VOC’s first official hydrographer was Hessel Gerritsz; upon his death, the title transferred to Willem Janszoon Blaeu, who produced this map. Although VOC geographic intelligence was tightly controlled, its hydrographers were also private businessmen, enabling select strategic knowledge of Asian coastlines, ports, and sea routes to enter the public domain through commercial maps such as this. The present work thus embodies the tension between corporate secrecy and the expanding circulation of global knowledge.

Asia is presented in a broad oval projection extending from the eastern Mediterranean and Persia through India and China to Japan and Southeast Asia. Coastal regions—particularly around the Indian Ocean and the Spice Islands—reflect VOC-derived maritime intelligence, while inland areas preserve period misconceptions, offering a revealing record of early modern European geographic imagination.

The map’s iconographic and decorative programme transforms geography into visual theatre. Across the seas, ships engage in battle east of the Philippines; another fires upon a whale in the northeast; and a merman west of Sumatra blows a conch shell. On land, a lion surveys eastern Africa, the Great Wall of China is carefully rendered with a camel nearby, and an elephant strides near the mythical Chismay Lake, believed to be the source of the Ganges. The title cartouche—held aloft by archers—announces this as a newly delineated vision of Asia.

The margins amplify this spectacle. Along the upper border, nine oval city prospects—including Jerusalem, Damascus, Goa, Hormuz, Aden, Bantam, Macao, Kandy, and Calcutta—highlight sacred and commercial hubs essential to global trade. The vertical borders display paired male and female costume figures representing Syrians, Arabs, Armenians, Persians, Deccan peoples, Sumatrans, Javanese, Moluccans, Banda islanders, Chinese, Moscovians, and Tartars. These figures exemplify the tradition of cartes-à-figures, blending travel accounts, ethnographic curiosity, and imaginative invention into a visual taxonomy of cultures.

Conceived as a luxury wall map for elite interiors, VOC-linked mercantile offices, and learned collections, this work epitomises the fusion of scientific cartography, imperial commerce, and ornamental artistry that defined Dutch Golden Age mapping.

NON-EXPORTABLE

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