South East Asia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines…. De Renneville / Blaeu, 1703, Archipelage des Moluques [rare]

Very uncommon map with a striking dark impression of De Renneville's edition of the De Bry´s or Blaeu´s very early map of South East Asia.

Image 30,5x42,5cm, page 31x44,5cm

Centered on Borneo, the map coves all of Southeast Asia and the East Indies from Pegu and Arakan in the North to Java and Timor in the South and from the Andaman Islands in the west to the Philippines and New Guinea in the east. This includes the modern day nations of Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Borneo, and the Philippines. An inset in the upper right detail Buton Island or, as it is written here, Botton Island.

Most scholars consider this an expansion upon De Bry's Mar di India, however, we see no justification for this claim, as this map covers a much wider area offering significant new detail and unrelated typonomy throughout. More likely this map is cartographically derived map from the East Indies section of Willem Blaeu's 1609 wall map of Asia, to which it corresponds point-for-point. Pay particular attention to the southern coast of Java, the eastern coast of Borneo, and eastern Sulawesi, all of which, though most likely tentatively explored by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), were when this map was printed covetously guarded secrets. The map's various decorative elements and its engraving style are also more stylistically connected to the work of Blaeu and other early 18th century Dutch cartographer than to De Bry's 16th century work.

The most unique aspect this map is the inset in the upper right quadrant of the Button Strait (Buton Strait). Booton or Buton Island is a small island set in the Flores Sea just the southeast of the Celebes or Sulawesi. The inset map details a strait, the Strait of Buton, separating the island form the nearby Pulau Muna or Moena eiland (here labeled Camboy), located just to the west. The singular historic event relating to this strait is its discovery by Willem Cornelisz Schouten and Jacob le Maire in 1616.

Between 1615 and 1617 Schouten and Le Maire circumnavigated the globe in a search not only for elusive and apocryphal Terra Australis, but also for an alternative route to the Spice Island that would enable them to undermine the trade monopoly of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In 1616 Schouten rounded Cape Horn, which he names for his birthplace Hoorn, and coasted New Ireland and New Guinea, in the process identifying several new islands which he named Willem Schoute Eylandt (Schouten Islands). On the present example these are identified just to the north of New Guinea a significant and telling point of variance between this and the 1609 Blaeu wall map of Asia.

Published in Constantin Renneville's ´Recueil des voyages qui ont servi a l'etablissement et aux progres de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales, ... tome 8´, first published in 1703.

Very good condition. Right margin extended with antique paper. Upper and lower margins narrow, but sufficient, as published. Folded as published. Small light brown stain in the bottom right corner. Very clear print.