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Click to enlargeBejapoor. Asie 102
A sheet covering the Bijapur country of the central Deccan, from Philippe Vandermaelen's Atlas Universel — the first world atlas drawn entirely at one uniform scale and the first produced by lithography. The Maratha heartland rendered as one interchangeable tile of a mapped globe.
Authorship and object
Sheet "Asie no. 102" of Vandermaelen's Atlas Universel (Brussels, 1827), drawn by Vandermaelen and lithographed by H. Ode at the atlas's standard scale of about 1:1,641,836. Hand-coloured, relief by hachures, with a lengthy geographical note on the East Indies running across this and the adjoining sheet.
The Deccan as standard tile
Covering the Bijapur region, the sheet receives exactly the same treatment as every other in the atlas. Its irregular, arbitrary edges — cut by the grid rather than by geography — are the visible sign of a system that subordinates the particular place to the global scheme.
The gaze
The sheet sees the Deccan as one unit of a uniformly mapped world. The interior of the subcontinent, so long left blank, is now simply filled in to the same specification as everywhere else — comprehension by standardisation.