Melchisedech Thévenot (1620-92) was a scientist, traveller, diplomat and author who collected accounts of voyages. Some authorities also claim that he invented the spirit level in 1666. This map of China, Korea and Japan is credited to João Teixeira, cartographer to the King of Portugal. It was based in part on reports of the Portuguese merchant in Macao João de Gama. He famously sailed the northern route across the Pacific in 1589 and after arriving in Acapulco, Mexico, was promptly arrested by the Spanish. It was published in the second part of Thevenot’s ‘Recueil des Voyages’ published from 1663 and was engraved by A. Peyrounin. Its influence on France was similar to that of Hakluyt on England a hundred years earlier. In the same year 1664 as this second part the French East India Company was formed. It spurred the countries exploration of the world. Guillaume De L’Isle later wrote that the original charts came into Thevenot’s possession after a French ship had taken it from a Portuguese carrack.

At first glance the map looks most similar to the Martino Martini map of the same region first published in Amsterdam by Joan Blaeu in 1655. Martini was a Jesuit Missionary in Hangzhou where he lived from 1642 to 1651. Returning to Europe in 1654 he took with him many of the results of Jesuit surveying in the region. It depicts the improved relatively accurate Korean peninsula but to the north and east are fresh cartography. To the north of Korea we find the new toponyms of ‘Niuche Regnum’, ‘Kilacho’, ‘Tata’ and ‘Niulhan’. The map is important for Japan as the island of ‘Ieso’ or Hokkaido is tentatively displayed as an island unlike the Martini, “it was not until the 19th century that Yezo was seen to form a part of Japan” (Campbell). Across the northern part of China is the magnificent Great Wall. Campbell ‘Map Collector Series’ 36 no. 4; Cortazzi ‘Isles of Gold’ pp. 57-8; Cortesao, ‘Portugalliae Monumenta Cartographica’, pp. 147-9; Shirley ‘Atlases in the British Library’ G.Thev 1a no. 11; Suarez, T. (SE Asia) p. 208; Wagner, H. (NW) 357.