Matthäus Seutter

A map of the Far East, with an elaborate title cartouche.

• Matthaus Seutter (German).
• India Orientalis cum Adjacentibus Insulis Nova Delineatione ob oculos posita.
• Augsburg: circa 1730.
• Original color.
• This work is presented unframed.

Decorative map of south-east Asia from India to the southern coastline of Japan. To the south is the northern coasline of Australia, still connected to New Guinea by Carpentaria, with over thirty named features.

The elaborate title cartouche has two themes: on the left is a missionary converting the natives; on the right are more native peoples offering exotic gifts such as ivory and coral as tribute to a personification of Europe, whilst Neptune gestures to the sea signifying European domination of it.