Indoustan ou Indes

Circa 1750s

Woodcut on paper

Print size: 7.75 x 9 in (20 x 23 cm)
Sheet size: 9.5 x 14 in (24 x 35.5 cm)
Folded: 9.5 x 7.5 in (24 x 19 cm)

Indoustan or Indes—Blondeau’s Wide-Margined French Map of India, Later Issued in Matthew Carey’s First General Atlas of the United States

This elegant mid-eighteenth-century engraving, titled Indoustan ou Indes, was produced in Paris in the 1750s by Blondeau for the French edition of William Guthrie’s influential Atlas Universel pour la Géographie. A fine wide-margined example, the map offers a meticulously engraved and visually balanced view of India, Tibet, Ceylon and Siam, executed with the clarity and restraint increasingly characteristic of French geographical production in the decades preceding the full dominance of British survey cartography.

The sheet is exceptionally detailed in its treatment of hydrography and physical geography, incorporating dense river systems, mountain ranges, and forested regions, while achieving a striking accuracy in its coastal outlines. Contemporary assessments note that its shorelines “differ little from a modern map,” reflecting the mid-eighteenth-century transition toward a more empirical, hydrographically informed cartographic tradition grounded in Dutch, French, and English maritime intelligence. This precision is especially notable in the delineation of the Laccadive and Maldive archipelagos, rendered here with unusual clarity for the period.

Of particular importance is the map’s distinguished transatlantic publishing afterlife. This plate was later adopted into Matthew Carey’s General Atlas, published in Philadelphia in the early nineteenth century and recognised as the first general atlas issued in the newly formed United States of America. In Carey’s pioneering American editions, the map appears as map no. 21, titled An Accurate Map of Hindostan or India from the Best Authorities, and is frequently identifiable by the engraved line above the border stating that it was “engraved for Carey’s edition of Guthrie’s Geography improved.” Its inclusion in this foundational American atlas underscores both the enduring authority of Guthrie’s geographical framework and the broad international reach of Blondeau’s disciplined engraving style.

Wide-margined impressions of this plate in clean condition are increasingly scarce. The present example, with its crisp linework and well-preserved surface, stands at a significant juncture in the transmission of South Asian geographic knowledge from Enlightenment Europe to the earliest cartographic ambitions of the United States.

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