Carte Reduite de L’Ocean Oriental Depuis le Cap de Bonne Esperance, Jusqu’au Japon.

Rare sea chart of the Indian Ocean from 1775.

Mannevillette produced two similar large scale sea charts of the Indian Ocean; this one published in 1775 showing a much larger portion of Australia showing and  extending to South Australia and as far north as Japan while the other chart published in the first issue of the Le Neptune Oriental  in 1745, only shows a small portion of the western Australian coast and only extends north to  ‘l’Isle Formose’ (Taiwan). Although the map is dated 1753 below the title it was only first issued in the second enlarged edition of the Le Neptune Oriental containing fifty six charts in 1775.

The chart records a number of the early Dutch discoveries on the Australian coast, including; Hartog 1616, Houtman 1619, van Leeuwin 1622, Tortelduff 1624, Nuyts 1627, de Wit 1628, and the northwest discoveries of Tasman’s second voyage 1644. With the support of the prestigious Academie des Sciences, D’Apres Mannevillette published twenty-five charts in 1745 under the title Le Neptune Oriental. 

Mannevillette was one of the most eminent and influential cartographers who was instrumental in raising the standards of available printed sea charts for the eastern trade, in both France and England in the c.18th. From about 1735 Mannevillette had set about collecting detailed charts of the known coasts from Africa to Australia and which, with the financial support of the Comapne des Indes and the Academie des Sciences, published his ground breaking sea atlas, Le Neptune Oriental in 1745. With its twenty two charts, superior to any available, it quickly became the indispensable atlas for ship owners, captains and pilots engaged in the Southeast Asian sea routes.

From Mannevillette, Le Neptune Oriental.