Die Halb Insul Indiens disseit des Ganges Mid den Konigreichen Decan, Golconda, Bisnagar und den Kusten Malabar und Coromandel (with large view of Nagapatnam)

1686

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 11 x 13.75 in (28 x 35 cm)
Sheet size: 11.75 x 14.25 in (30 x 36 cm)

Dutch Coromandel’s Capital at Negapatnam: Wagner’s Rare German Map of the Deccan, Golconda and Bisnagar, with the VOC Fort Vijf Sinnen (1686)

Johann Wagner’s Die Halb Insul Indiens… Decan, Golconda, Bisinagar (1686) stands among the earliest German-engraved attempts to depict Southern India as a coherent geopolitical entity during a period of immense regional transformation. Produced in Nuremberg—then a flourishing European centre of scientific engraving—Wagner’s map synthesises a range of earlier Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian sources, offering a distinctly Central European interpretation of the great southern polities that had dominated the region over the preceding two centuries: the Deccan Sultanates, the kingdom of Golconda, and the vestiges of the once-powerful Vijayanagara (Bisnagar) Empire.

The dating of the map to 1686 is historically resonant: the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s conquest of Golconda occurred in the same year, marking the political demise of one of India’s wealthiest sultanates. Wagner’s map, however, preserves the region in a form that predates full Mughal consolidation, presenting an invaluable cartographic snapshot of Southern India’s political geography during the final years of Deccan independence. Golconda appears prominently, while “Bisnagar” reflects the enduring European memory of Vijayanagara, whose monumental capital had fallen in 1565 but whose name continued to signify the southern interior in European mapping traditions.

Particularly striking is Wagner’s large Baroque inset view of Negapatnam (modern Nagapattinam), showing the Dutch fort Vijf Sinnen (“The Five Senses”), which served as the administrative capital of Dutch Coromandel from 1660 until 1781. Originally established by the Portuguese and seized by the Dutch in 1658, the port became a key VOC stronghold on the Coromandel Coast. The inset is animated by three Dutch East India Company ships in harbour, accompanied by numerous smaller Dutch and local craft, underscoring the maritime-commercial framework through which South India was increasingly viewed and governed in European imperial geography.

The engraving style is characteristically South German: densely lettered, with stylised mountain chains and a carefully balanced composition reflecting the pre-survey cartographic conventions of the seventeenth century. Coastal trading centres such as Goa, Calicut, and Cochin are inscribed with relative confidence, revealing the lingering influence of Portuguese and Dutch maritime intelligence.

As a cartographic object, Wagner’s map exemplifies the transitional phase between Renaissance cosmography and the more empirically grounded atlases of the eighteenth century. Scarce in survival and overshadowed by the commercial dominance of Blaeu, Hondius, and Sanson, it remains a rare Central European vision of Southern India—capturing the Deccan at the threshold of Mughal expansion and uniquely anchoring the region’s geopolitical imagination around the VOC capital at Negapatnam.

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