1732 Danet Separate-Issue Map of Asia

A highly decorative separate issue map of 1732 Asia issued by Guillaume Danet. The map is distinctively striking with a scallop shells and armorial shield border and elaborate decorative cartouche. Cartographically the map was derived from Guillaume De L'Isle (1675 – 1726) revised 1720 map of Asia. Coverage extends from the Mediterranean to the Philippines and from Nova Zembla to Java.

Danet's map is particularly interesting for its presentation of Kamchatka, which draws from the 1730 map of Philipp Johann Strahlenberg, which itself is based upon his own travels augmented by Abu Al-Ghazi Bahadur's Genealogical History of the Tartars. Although Kamchatka remains attached to Hokkaido, here identified as Yesso, the map does name Russian colonies in the region and describe several indigenous kingdoms. Just off the coast of Kamchatka there are several speculative island groups, including Terre da la Compagnie, a mismapping of the Japanese Kuril Islands Kunashir and Iturup (Terre de la Compagnie) based upon the 1643 explorations of Dutch navigators Maerten de Vries and Cornelis Jansz Coen.

This map was a part of a series of continent maps engraved for Danet, possibly by Jan L'Huilier. Some of the maps in that series are signed by one J. Luillier. While the present Asia map is not signed by Luillier, where his imprint would have been situated based upon other maps in the series, just above Danet's name in the cartouche, some text has been scratched out.

Most likely Luiller is a reference to Jan or Joannes L'Huilier, a 17th and early 18th century French engraver. Some of the maps in this series are conventionally dated to 1731, but all examples we have identified have dates of 1732, suggesting that the 1731 date may be nothing more than an oft-repeated error. It is conceivable that L'Huilier or Luillier issued this map on his own account before publishing them under Danet's imprint, but if so no such examples have been found.

After Danet's widow Marguerite-Geneviève died in 1746, the plates for this map series were acquired by Louis Charles Desnos who completed a major revision and issued editions in 1760, 1766 and 1774. Danet was not a prolific cartographer and his works are rare, especially, as here, independent issue maps.