Suite de la Carte de l’Inde en deca du Gange, IIe Feuille, comprenant la Presqu’Isle de l’Inde

1757 (from the 1752 plate)

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 9 x 10 in (23 x 25.5 cm)
Sheet size: 9.75 x 11.5 in (24.5 x 29 cm)

A finely engraved mid-eighteenth-century French hydrographic map of Southern India and Ceylon, produced by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin for Prévost’s Histoire générale des voyages, charting the Malabar and Coromandel coasts at the height of European rivalry in the Indian Ocean

Bellin’s Suite de la Carte de l’Inde en deca du Gange, issued in 1757 for Abbé Prévost’s monumental Histoire générale des voyages, represents one of the most authoritative French cartographic treatments of the Indian peninsula during the pre-Rennell era. Covering the region from Bombay (Mumbai) in the north to Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari) in the south, and including the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the map offers a remarkably precise delineation of the Malabar and Coromandel littorals — the principal theatre of European mercantile, naval, and missionary activity across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ports of strategic consequence such as Madras (Chennai), Tranquebar, Pondicherry, Goa, Jaffna and Colombo are rendered with clarity, reflecting Bellin’s unparalleled access to French naval surveys and the holdings of the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine. Numerous rivers, inlets, lagoons and coastal landmarks are engraved with a scientific rigour that demonstrates why Bellin was regarded as the most dependable hydrographer of his generation.

Although essentially hydrographic in intention, the map also captures the layered political geography of the peninsula at a moment when the French Compagnie des Indes and the English East India Company were engaged in fierce competition for sovereignty, alliances, and revenue rights. The Coromandel coast, in particular, is shown as a contested space defined by fortified trading posts, mission settlements, and indigenous polities whose boundaries and influence were in flux. Ceylon, divided between Dutch and residual native authority, is depicted with considerable detail along its western and northern shores, underscoring its value as a maritime and cinnamon-producing hub. The map’s elegant engraved cartouche and clean linework reflect Bellin’s stylistic preference for clarity over the elaborate ornamentation typical of earlier French mapmakers. Its publication in Prévost’s encyclopaedic travel history ensured that it circulated widely among European readers, shaping contemporary knowledge of Southern India’s geography, maritime trade routes and colonial entanglements.

Bellin’s broader cartographic project contributed significantly to the consolidation of French geographical science in the eighteenth century. As Ingénieur hydrographe and later Hydrographe du Roi, he produced hundreds of charts covering the world’s coastlines, setting standards that would influence European cartography well into the nineteenth century. His work on India, including the present sheet, occupies a crucial position between the impressionistic coastal maps of the seventeenth century and the scientific triangulated surveys later undertaken by James Rennell. As such, this map stands as both a historical artefact and a key reference point in the evolving European understanding of the subcontinent.

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