Click to enlargeComposite Map: 99-100B. Neueste Karte von Hindostan Bengalen
Franz Anton Schräembl's "Newest Map of Hindostan," from the first Austrian commercial atlas — a faithful Vienna re-engraving of Rennell's Map of Hindoostan. It shows how quickly the British surveyor's India became the standard image across the whole of Europe.
Authorship and object
Issued by Franz Anton Schräembl (1751–1803) in his Allgemeiner Grosser Atlas (Vienna) — the first Austrian commercial atlas — the German-language plate is dated 1788 and appeared in the completed atlas of 1800. Outline colour.
A faithful copy of Rennell
The map is a close rendition of Rennell's 1782 Map of Hindoostan, then the contemporary state of the art, adapted for German readers. Its long title advertises the roads, the passes and a careful delineation of the British possessions in the East Indies — registering not just geography but the new territorial order.
The gaze
Within a few years of its appearance, Rennell's survey-based India had been adopted in Vienna as simply the correct picture. The map marks the moment British survey knowledge became pan-European authority — and, in flagging the "British possessions," the moment Europe began to read India as British territory.