(Click the thumb nail to see a larger image)

Pub Year	Map Maker	Pub Place	Map Title	Map Price (USD)	Picture
1756	Reland, Adrian	Ultrecht	Imperium Japonicum per Regiones Digestum sex et sexaginta atque ex Ipsorum Japonensium Mappis Descriptum ab Hadriano Relando	$2,950	Picture

An engraved map with hand colored wash.

Size: 18-1/4 inches X 23-3/4 inches

Map Type: Loose

This is a supurb copy with strong engraving and vivid color. Minor age toning. The map has been professionally backed with light Japanese tissue to repair and strengthened several marginal tears and some minor creasing within the map.

Adrian Reland ignored the European cartograpical information that had been gathered during the previous 200 years and assembled this map from information found on a Japanese woodblock map from the library of Benjamin Dutry, a prominent Dutch East India Company official. He included named and boundraries for all 66 of Japan's feudal provinces, displayed on the map in different colors. It was the first western map to use Sino-Japanese characters and excluded many fictitious place names that appeared on previous European maps. This Japanese map presented a distorted view of Japan, particularly Honshu, because the geographical shape was made to fit the format of a folding travel map. The map was dedicated to abbot Jean Paul Bignon and the bishop's miter, cross and crown held by the two angels on the title cartouche are in accord with this dedication. The scenes of Japanese life that fill the bottom of the map feature a Samurai, merchants, a farmer with an ox, fishermen, and a temple. Examples of Japanese ceramics that were a popular import to Holland are displayed at the base of the cartouche. These scenes were drawn, in part from Montanus. Engraved by B. Ruyter and first published by Reland in 1715; this being the third state published by Reinier and Josua Ottens. Large inset map of the vicinity of Nagasaki.

References: Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers, Volume 4 Page 31, Reland, Adrian, Scott, Valerie, Map Collector Publications, Tring, Hertz, England, 1999