Original 1636 Blaeu Map of China, Japan, and Korea with Korea shown as an Island and Japan shown with Honshu but not Hokkaido. There is a decorated cartouche at top right with a second dedicatory cartouche along lower edge to D. Theodoro Bas. The text on the reverse is in Latin.
This map of the region with the eastern part of China, bounded in the north-west by the Great Wall, and dominated by several large lakes, is based on Jesuit surveys and represents the next major revision in the cartography of China after Ortelius' 1584 map.
The fictitious Chaimay Lacus is shown with numerous rivers flowing south into India and Siam. Korea is depicted as a strangely shaped island separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. Taiwan is located in a roughly correct position, named as both Pakan al I. Formosa and Tayoan. Korea, however, is still an island, and Japan consists only of three islands.
The map is richly embellished with European sailing ships and Chinese sampans, a decorative distance scale, and a title cartouche flanked by a Chinese man and woman.
Willem Janszoon Blaeu was born 1571 in Alkmaar. He was trained from 1594 to 1596 by the famous danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. In 1599 he went to Amsterdam and founded a business as globe maker.
Later he started producing map and sea charts, including his first world map in 1605. In 1633 he was appointed Hydrographer for the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
His most famous work was the 6 volume “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum sive Atlas Novus” of 1635. After Blaeu's death in 1638 his sons Joan and Cornelis continued the business and finished the Atlas Novus and started an even larger work, the Atlas Major, which reached 12 volumes.
Blaeu was a prominent Dutch mapmaker, and his maps are considered to be amongst the finest examples of 17th century cartography.
