Asia Corrected from the Observations com…

Rare large scale c.18th hand coloured engraved map of Asia, printed on two joined sheets.

The map encompasses the full extent of Asia, including a detailed rendering of the Philippines, the Ladrones (Mariana Islands), and the broader Indonesian archipelago. A portion of the northern coast of Australia—labeled “New Holland”—appears in the lower right corner, marking an early European attempt to chart this distant land.

Japan is curiously overshadowed by the vast, conjectural “Land of Yedso” (Hokkaido), which appears to merge with another enigmatic landmass, “Compagnia,” near the coast of Russia. A note reads: “It is not known whether the country of Yedso be join’d to Japan or not.” These regions represent cartographic echoes of Dutch voyages—particularly those of Maarten de Vries and Cornelis Jansz Coen in 1643—and are drawn from reports of discoveries that were only partially understood by European mapmakers. Legends told of Yedso’s inhabitants dining with utensils made of gold and silver, lending an air of exotic fantasy.

Notable geographic misconceptions also appear: the fictional Lake of Chiamay is prominently depicted in Assam, believed by early European geographers to be the source of multiple great rivers of Southeast Asia. Tibet is marked as the “K[ingdom] of Great Tibet” but is otherwise sparsely detailed. Korea is included, though its shape is distorted, and the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya is mistakenly rendered as a peninsula curving over eastern Europe.

A dramatic, imaginary mountain range stretches from the west coast of Siberia into the Pacific Ocean—an invention tied to Peter the Great’s exploration efforts. Russian navigator Semen Ivanovich Dezhnyov’s expedition is referenced in a note stating, “It is not known whether this chain of mountains ends or whether they are not joined to some other continent.”

The map is elegantly dedicated to Sir George Markham, Baronet, in an inscription in the upper right. A richly decorative title cartouche is adorned with classical figures, including Venus and Mercury, and a cherubic putto bearing a cornucopia—symbols of the continent’s perceived abundance and mystery.

A work of both artistic merit and historical intrigue, this map captures the evolving European understanding of Asia during the Age of Discovery and Enlightenment.