Les Isles Philippines, Molucques et de la Sonde

General map of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Also including the south coast of China.


Sanson is regarded as the most important French map maker of the first half of the 17th century and as the man who laid the foundation for French cartographic supremacy in the latter stages of the 1600s and the early part of the 18th century.


His map of Southeast Asia was first published in 1654, most likely as a separate issue but first appeared in his atlas of 1658. Much of it is sourced from the Dutch East India Company, particularly the manuscript maps of the obscure pilot Pierre Berthelot, who charted that part of the world on behalf of the Company between 1622 and 1626. The information he collected was passed on to the official map makers of the VOC (Dutch East India Company), Hessel Gerritz and then Willem Blaeu. Probably due to this information being regarded as commercially sensitive, Sanson's map is regarded as more accurate than Blaeu's own map of the region first issued in 1630. One startling element on the map, the division of New Guinea into two islands, seems to be a peculiarity specific to Sanson.


Original hand colour. [SEAS2587]