Mar di India

Theodor de Bry founded one of the most influential European publishing enterprises devoted to illustrated voyage literature, but this map was issued after his death by the de Bry heirs, principally Johann Theodor de Bry. Commonly known as Mar di India from the inscription in the lower left, the map was published in 1619 in India Occidentalis, part 11, which included accounts of the Pacific and East Indian voyages of Willem Cornelisz. Schouten, Jacob Le Maire, and Joris van Spilbergen.

The map shows Southeast Asia and the East Indies as a broad maritime region, including Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, the Moluccas, and surrounding seas. Although untitled, it is one three known de Bry maps to depict the East Indies in its entirety, rather than focusing on a single voyage route or a more restricted section of the archipelago. Cartographically, the map belongs to the later phase of the de Bry publishing project, when the firm’s voyage collections increasingly linked the Americas, the Pacific, and Asia through accounts of circumnavigation. Its geography reflects earlier printed models of Southeast Asia, especially the influential mapping of Jan Huygen van Linschoten, while also drawing on information associated with Dutch voyages of the early seventeenth century.

This map may be compared with Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Southeast Asia map from the Itinerario (74), which also presents the East Indies as a broad maritime region rather than as a single voyage route. It also relates to the earlier de Bry maps, especially the Java Sea maps in India Orientalis, part 2 (68and 104), and the route map of de Houtman’s voyage in India Orientalis, part 3 (67). More broadly, it relates to the Claesz. and Lodewijcksz. group (54, 69, and 73), which records the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies and the early printed circulation of Dutch maritime knowledge about Java and the surrounding seas. Provenance: Ex Collection Geoffrey Allan Edwards (1947–2019)