Carte des Indes Orientales.

Superbly detailed map extending from Africa to Australia by the celebrated French mapmaker Pierre Duval, nephew of Nicholas Sanson, and one of the most influential and prolific Parisian mapmakers of the late seventeenth century. It is elegantly decorated with a scrolled title cartouche, dedication panel, compass roses and rhumb lines. The map records the following Dutch discoveries on the Australian coast: Hartog in the Eendracht 1616, Houtman in the Dordrecht and Amsterdam 1619, the van Leeuwin 1622, Carstensz in the Leijden 1623, Nuyts in the Gulden Zeepaert 1627 (incorrectly dated 1625), de Wit in the Vianen 1628 and the two voyages of Abel Tasman in the Heemskerck and Zeehaen 1642-3 and 1644. The map does not include details from the first recorded European discovery of Australia by Willem Jansz in the Duyfken on Cape York Peninsula 1606. The area between New Guinea and Cape York is uncharted and although Torres discovered the strait there in 1606, just four months after Jansz&#8217s discoveries at Cape York, it is not known if he actually sighted the Australian coast. Spanish maps included the southern coast of New Guinea but Dutch maps were not to include the Strait until after Cook&#8217s first voyage in 1770. Also noted are the Trial Islands near present-day Dampier, named after the ship the Trial, which had sailed for Java using the new sea route to the Indies pioneered by Brouwer in 1611. The Trial had struck unknown rocks on the night of 25 May 1622, and was wrecked with only forty-six survivors including Captain Brookes. In his subsequent report to the VOC authorities in Batavia, Brookes stated that the rocks were well west of their true position in an attempt to avoid blame for his error. Soon after a Dutch ship, the t Wapen van Hoorn, ran aground in a storm at the land of d&#8217Eendracht but managed to sail after the storm abated. Concerned for the viability of their trade route, the VOC prioritised the accuracy of their charting in the region, with captains and pilots being required to record all shallows and reefs in the area. Due to their incorrect placement on the Gerritsz chart, the Trial Rocks remained a mystery for a further two hundred years until Phillip Parker King, sailing in the Mermaid, investigated their position in 1820 and finally confirmed that &#8216there remains no doubt in my mind but that Barrow Island &#8230 are the same Tryal Rocks&#8217. A scarce map produced in small numbers. From Cartes de Geographie les plus nouvelles et les plus fideles. References: Clancy p.86, ill.6.19, Clancy (R ) p.108, ill.106-107, Parry p.149, ill.5.28, Quirino p.109, Richardson p.106-107, Schilder p.414-415, Tooley 539, Tooley Pg 203-2.