1717 China, Korea, Tartary, Bellin, Schley, large hand coloured map

Jakob van der Schley & Jacques Nicolas Bellin

'China, with Korea and Parts of Tartarstan: the Closest Parts, from the Maps Drawn by Jesuit Missionaries in the Years 1708 to 1717.

La Chine avec la Korée et les Parties de la Tartarie : les plus voisines, tirée des Cartes que les Jesuites Missionaires ont levées les Annees 1708 jusqu'en 1717

Pubished in Amsterdam, 1741

Dimensions: 36.5 x 38.5

Between 1708 and 1717, Jesuit missionaries resident in China supervised a comprehensive survey of the Chinese empire at the request of the emperor. Cartographic materials produced by this survey were brought from China to Paris, where they were used by Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (1697-1782), the great cartographer, geographer, and map collector, to compile his Nouvel atlas de la Chine, de la Tartarie Chinoise et du Thibet (New atlas of China, Chinese Tartary, and Tibet). This atlas was published in Holland in 1737 as a companion work to Father J.-B. Du Halde's Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine (Geographic, historical, chronological, political, and physical description of the Chinese Empire), published in 1735. The map presented here, of China, Korea, and the neighboring parts of Central Asia then known as Tartary, in Dutch and French, is an adaptation of one of D'Anville's maps. The subtitle, in Dutch at the bottom and in French in the cartouche, states that it is based on the Jesuit surveys. Place-names are in French and Dutch, with the Dutch translations sometimes given in brackets. The Great Wall, in northern China, is shown. The scale is in French leagues, and the prime meridian is set at Ferro Island, the southwestern-most of the Canary Islands.

Jakob van der Schley was a skilled draftsman and engraver who operated out of Amsterdam and had strong ties with the Hague. He was trained by Bernard Picart and his style resembles that of the elder man. Van der Schely was known for intricately engraved portraits and frontispieces. He signed most of the plates used in the Hague edition of the Abbe Prevost's Histoire generale des voyages.