Kankyo - Shinkan Yochi Zenzu [Officially licensed - A New Map of the World]. SATO (Masayoshi).

Large folding hand-coloured engraved map. Measuring ca. 136x136 cm. Original cloth boards, minor discolouring with original printed label on top board, slightly browned, minor damage to folds, but overall still a very good, clean copy. Edo, Rosokan/Yorozuya Heishiro, no date for printing [but Bunkyu 2, i.e. An important Japanese world-map in the Mercator projection, this map is surrounded by over 150 shipping flags while prominently featuring the Japanese flag in the middle of the title. It shows navigation routes of important explorers (Cook, Ross, Bellingshausen, Vancouver etc.) and includes distance charts from London and New York to the rest of the world. There is also a list of the highest mountains and the longest rivers. According to the preface (dated Bunkyu 1, i.e. 1861) by the cartographer Sato Masayoshi (1821-1877) the map was copied from a Dutch map published by C. F. Stemmler in 1857. At the end of the Edo period cartographic knowledge was still dominated by Dutch studies. Another preface is was written by Kimura Kaishu (1830-1901) a naval officer who was sent to Nagasaki in 1856 to supervise the establishment of naval academy with the help of the Dutch. In 1860 he was put in charge of the first Japanese embassy to the United States. The present map embodies the efforts during the 1860s to forge a new national identity amongst other world nations, and to adjust to the new international realities in terms of navigation and geography. This map set the standard for many of the later Meiji world-maps. Engraved by Takeguchi Ryusaburo and Uemura Fukusaburo at the Rosokan. Rare. Kerlen 1501.