Relief shown pictorially. Coordinates approximate and based on Greenwich meridian. Shows topography, drainage, vegetation, cities. Features Great Wall of China. Descriptive text throughout. Margins include descriptive text and four allegorical-historical vignettes. Appears in De Jode's Speculum orbis terrarum. Collector's note: De Jode's map of China has long been sought by collectors as one of the rarest and visually most arresting maps ever produced of China in the West. It appeared in only a single edition. The map is strikingly set within a circle, and in each of the comer roundels is an illustration of exotic or novel subject taken from the accounts of early travelers, including the famous wind chariot engraving in the lower right. The Great Wall can clearly be seen across northern China. Even though De Jode drew on the same sources as Ortelius for his mapping of China, De Jode presented its coastline somewhat more accurately. Japan receives one of its most unusual and largest delineations to be found on an early map, appearing as a dragon's head. The source of this is probably a Portuguese chart of 1573 by Fernao Vaz Dourado. De Jode appears to have omitted Korea altogether. While all of De Jode's maps are rare, this one is even more so, as it appeared in only one of the two editions of the De Jode atlas. While well regarded by scholars today, De Jode's atlas was commercially no match for Ortelius's. As a result only two editions were published, making De Jode's maps difficult-to-find prizes for the collector today.
