De Fer's charming, small world map was issued 1702 and is a curious mixture of the French scientific school but with more prominent decorative elements than were usually seen in French maps of this age.



De Fer was the son of a prominent engraver and produced his first map in 1669. He joined his father's business in 1673 and ultimately took over in 1687. He was a prolific map maker who produced over six hundred separate maps in multiple forms; as separate issues, bound within history and travel books, and as atlases. He must have been highly successful as in the late 17th century he was made Geographer to the Dauphin.



Geographically, this map is simplistic; what little interior detail is present corresponds only to continental landmasses which were surveyed at the time. Thus, Europe is, relatively speaking, detailed while Asia shows only the major regional powers such as China, India, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. The northern part of the continent is universally labelled as Grande Tartarie. The same is true of Africa with detail being sketchy due to lack of concrete knowledge although de Fer does show the continent divided into multiple regional powers such as Guinea in West Africa, Congo on the central west coast and the Omani Sultanate of Zanzibar (Zanguebar) on the east coast. The New World is orthodox with California being shown as an island and a hint of the Northwest Passage. South America is divided into Spanish and Portuguese possessions and then further divided into Spanish provinces such as La Plata, Peru and Chili.



The map also bears several other interesting geographical features. Of particular note are the marine routes across the Atlantic to the New World and the West Indies, together with others to the Far East both around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean and around Cape Horn into the Pacific. These emulate those shown on Pierre Duval's map of 1674, an early contemporary of De Fer.
Another curiosity is the peculiar depiction of the east coast of Asia, with a nebulous coastline north of Japan heading into the Pacific, de Fer's rendition of the concept of a land bridge between Asia and America, a persistent geographical myth which had been resurrected in the mid 17th century. Finally, a note on the lower centre of the map states that it was there several other map makers had placed the unknown, Great Southern Land, an interesting compromise by de Fer; although he does not add it to his map in geographical terms, he does draw attention to its possible existence. The Great Southern Land was a geographical feature first added to maps in the late 16th century to account for unconfirmed reports of areas such as New Guinea, Australia, unnamed Pacific islands seen by Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese mariners and the nature of Tierra del Fuego. As more information about the nature of these lands was incorporated into geographical thought through the 17th century, this landmass began to disappear from maps but de Fer was still careful to mention the possibility of its existence by this slightly unorthodox method.



There are three prominent cartouches on the map: in the upper and lower left and the lower right including one which states that this projection is a more accurate rendition of the world than that shown in a double hemisphere.



Original hand-colour. [WLD4543]