The First Printed Map of the East Asia

FRIES, Laurent. [Vienne, 1541]

China/Japan/ Tibet/ Indochina.  FRIES, Laurent  [Vienne: 1541]  Untitled Woodcut Map of East Asia. 11 ½ x 18 inches.  A few, filled small wormholes in outer margins, else excellent condition with a strong printing impression.                                                                                                                               
A superb example of the earliest collectible map focusing on East Asia.  Although in rudimentary form, the map shows all of China, Tartary, Japan and much of Southeast Asia, including Cambodia (Bocat) and Tibet. The latter is both shown and named in the very center of the map.  Some provincial divisions are indicated for China, and Japan appears as a single, large, north-south-oriented island. There is a woodcut of the Great Khan seated before a thick cluster of tents reminding the viewer that while the East may contain riches, it was also the source of the justly feared Mongol invaders. 

Although the map was based on the Waldseemuller wall maps of 1507 and 1516, its first appearance as a map specifically of this region was in this edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia by Laurent Fries, which was published in 1522, 1525, 1535 and 1541. There was no version of the map in Waldsemuller’s atlas of 1513.

Cf. Suarez, Southeast Asia, pp. 118-119.

Price: $4,500.00