1742 Coronelli Nolin Map of Southeast Asia (Siam, Thailand, Malaya, Laos, Vietnam)

This is the important and influential Coronelli-Nolin map of Southeast Asia, considered one of the Holy Grails of Siam-related map collecting. Here in its 1742 edition, the map was first issued in 1687, following the 1685 first French embassy to Siam, led by Alexandre, Chevalier de Chaumont (1640 - 1710). Most Europeans were expelled from Siam a year later in 1688, making this the definitive model of all subsequent maps of Siam, and Southeast Asia in general until the 1821 John Crawfurd Embassy.

A Closer Look

Coverage embraces from Martaban (modern day Myanmar / Burma) and Kehoa (Quang Binh Province, Vietnam) to Java and the Strait of Sunda (Sonde), thus including all southern Siam (Thailand), Laos, Cambodia, southern Vietnam, Malaya, Singapore, Sumatra, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and western Borneo. The track of the 1885-86 Chaumont Embassy is illustrated, entering the South China Sea via the Straits of Sunda, coasting eastern Malaya through the Gulf of Siam to the mouth of the Chao Phraya River, and returning south via the coast of Cambodia, to again pass through the Sunda Strait. In the lower left, the title cartouche evocatively takes the form of a white elephant, an age-old symbol the Siamese monarchy.

Historical Context

Although first contacted by a Portuguese Embassy in 1511, Siam remained little known to Europeans. The Dutch and French were allowed a few trading and resupply posts along the Chao Phraya River south of modern-day Bangkok but failed to penetrate inland. Nor did Siam have an indigenous cartographic tradition that could be assimilated or copied, so these early points of contact generated few maps. This began to change with the 1685-86 Chevalier de Chaumont Embassy.

When Chaumont and his 6 Jesuit companions arrived in the Siamese capital, it was during an unprecedented golden age known as the Ayutthaya Period (1351 - 1767). During this period, Siam expanded dramatically, annexing U Thong, Lopburi, and former Khmer strongholds including Angkor. It was also a period of social and philosophical growth, leading to modernized legal systems and a flowering of the arts. Ayutthaya (Judtija) itself, the capital, boasted a population in excess of 1,000,000 and was likely the largest city in the world.

The Siamese monarch at the time of the embassy, King Narai the Great (Ramathibodi III; 1632 - 1688), was fascinated with foreigners, especially the French. He had foreign advisors and even allowed for the construction of a French fort south of the capital at a bend in the Chao Phraya that is today Bangkok. Although Narai retained his Buddhist faith, his son and heir was converted to Christianity.

In 1688, two years after the Chaumont Embassy, and perhaps because of it and the ramifications it suggested, one of Narai's chief advisors, Phetracha (1632 - 1703), led an anti-foreigner revolution. Phetracha ordered the killing Narai's Christian heir and possibly Narai (although he was already ill) and established himself as King. Phetracha reversed Narai's pro-French policies, expelling all missionaries, and laying siege to the fort at Bangkok. Under Phetracha and his heirs, only the Dutch were allowed a limited presence, essentially closing Siam to foreign influence for the subsequent 150 years.

The new cartographic information gathered by Chaumont transmitted was passed on, via the agency of the semi-official Royal cartographer Jean-Baptiste Nolin, to the Venetian, Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, considered the finest cartographer in Europe. Coronelli, who made two magnificent and colossal globes for the French King Louis XIV, was much admired in court and granted special access to these and other records. Via Coronelli and Nolin, the limited reconnaissance of the Chaumont embassy presented here, became the definitive European reference for Siam and Southeast Asia until the early 19th century.

Publication History and Census

This map was first published in 1687 by Jean-Baptiste Nolin and Vincenzo Maria Coronelli. The present example is the 1742 second edition, issued from the same plates by Jean-Baptiste Nolin's son, also Jean-Baptiste Nolin. Although well represented in select European institutions, on the private market, all editions and examples are extremely scarce and highly desirable.