Carte Reduite Des Terres Australes.

One of only a handful of eighteenth-century maps devoted solely to the Australian continent, by Nicholas Bellin who was appointed a hydrographer to the French Navy at the age of eighteen and later became head of the French Hydrographic Office and official hydrographer to the King.

Bellin was an important figure of the French Enlightenment and as an encyclopediste, contributed 994 articles to Diderot’s Encyclopedie . A prodigious cartographer of the highest standards, his maps were highly regarded and often copied by other European mapmakers. Bellin was a founder of the French school of theoretical cartography and in this map depicts the Australian landmass joining a theoretical east coast of Australia with the known coastlines of Tasmania, New Guinea and the New Hebrides, extending Australia’s southern coastline from the furthest easterly discoveries made by Nuyts in 1627. This representation of the Australian landmass significantly influenced the way the continent was depicted in almost all maps produced prior to the publication of James Cook’s discoveries of the east coast in 1773.

The chart shows the Dutch discoveries on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula made by Cartensz 1623, Tasman’s first and second voyages 1642-44, Hartog 1616, Houtman 1619, the van Leeuwin 1622, de Wit 1628, Nuyts 1627 and Vlamingh 1697. It also notes William Dampier’s visit to Shark Bay 1699.

References: Clancy p.92, ill.6.28, Perry ill.pl.30, Tooley 156, ill.pl.9, 80, p.24.