Vaisseaux Indiens sur la Côte de Malabar / Petits Bâtiments Indiens sur la Côte de Malabar (Set of 2)
a) Pierre Quentin Chedel after Charles Nicolas Cochin
Vaisseaux Indiens sur la Côte de Malabar (Indian Vessels on the Coast of Malabar)
Circa 1760–1800
Copper engraving on paper
Print size: 9.5 x 6 in (24 x 15.5 cm)
Sheet size: 14.25 x 9 in (36 x 23 cm)
Printed in Abrégé de l’Histoire générale des voyages (Tome I)
Depicts a distinct maritime scene featuring larger indigenous craft with sail rigging, crews engaged in navigation and fishing, and a rocky coastal escarpment framing the right margin. The composition differs from Print I in vessel scale, crew arrangement, and pictorial rhythm, offering a complementary study of regional seafaring.
b) Charles Theodore Middleton
Petits Bâtiments Indiens sur la Côte de Malabar (Small Indian Vessels on the Coast of Malabar)
1777–79
Copper engraving on paper
Print size: 7.75 x 5.5 in (19.5 x 14 cm)
Sheet size: 10 x 7.25 in (25.5 x 18.5 cm)
Engraved for Middleton’s Complete System of Geography
The print depicts multiple small indigenous coastal vessels like the Kattamaram, kambavala vallam, vanchi, toni, etc., that travelled along the coast of Malabar, the southwestern coastline of India. Features rowers, sailors, fishermen, and cargo handling, with a rocky shoreline, vegetation, and a pavilion structure in the background. Emphasis on ethnographic observation of boat types and maritime labour.
Malabar Coast Shipping - Two European Engravings of Indigenous Vessels, French & English, mid–late 18th century
A closely related pair of 18th-century engravings documenting indigenous watercraft along India’s Malabar Coast, presented through two distinct but complementary European publishing contexts. The first, a French plate titled Petits Bâtiments Indiens en usage sur la Côte de Malabar (Tome I, Plate 35), supplies a keyed typology of local craft (1. Tony. 2. Manadie. 3. Pare.), framing coastal navigation as an object of Enlightenment curiosity and voyage-literature description. The second, the English plate Various kinds of VESSELS used on the coast of MALABAR, is explicitly issued “Engraved for Middleton’s Complete System of Geography” and belongs to Charles Theodore Middleton’s widely circulated A New and Complete System of Geography (London: J. Cooke, 1777–79), a publication noted for its suite of illustrative copperplates alongside geographic text. Together, the prints offer a concise visual dossier on maritime life at a major littoral of Indian Ocean commerce—where river mouths, surf zones, and sheltered backwaters demanded specialised hull forms and rigging. As a set, they appeal both to collectors of colonial-era visual ethnography and to specialists in Indian maritime history, printing culture, and the iconography of European travel and geographic compendia.
(Set of two)
NON-EXPORTABLE
This lot is offered at RESERVE
This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as reference for the condition of each lot.