Antique Map of Southern India and Ceylon by Homann Heirs (1733)

Description: Antique map titled 'Peninsula Indiae citra Gangem, hoc est Orae Celeberrimae Malabar & Coromandel. Cum adjacente Insula non minus celebratissima Ceylon (..).' This map covers the subcontinent roughly from Bombay south to Cape Comorin and includes all of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Homan offers good detail along the coast naming numerous ports and, where appropriate, appending either an English, French, Danish, Dutch or Portuguese flag to indicate the European power laying claim to that port. The interior is more vague, though many of the major caravan routes are noted, if only speculatively. There are numerous annotations in Latin throughout. Homann also identifies various battle sites associated with the southward progress of the Mughal Empire in 1707. When Homann drew this map, only Madras, Malabar, Ceylon, and the European ports remained independent of Mughal control. A large title cartouche depicting Indian traders and an elephant appears in the lower left quadrant. Source unknown, to be determined.

Artists and Engravers: Following the long period of Dutch domination, the Homann family became the most important map publishers in Germany in the eighteenth century, the business being founded by J.B. Homann in Nuremberg about the year 1702. Soon after publishing his first atlas in 1707 he became a member of the Berlin academy of Sciences and in 1715 he was appointed Geographer to the Emperor. After the founder's death in 1724, the firm was continued under the direction of his son until 1730 and was then bequeathed to his heirs on the condition that it trades under the name of Homann Heirs. The firm remained in being until the next century and had a wide influence on map publishing in Germany. Apart from the atlases the firm published a very large number of individual maps. The Homanns produced a Neuer Atlas in 1714, a Grosser Atlas in 1737, and an Atlas Maior with about 300 maps in 1780. They also issued a special Atlas of Germany with full sized plans of principal cities, school atlases and an Atlas of Silesia in 1750 with 20 maps.