Carte Reduite des Terres Australes

Important and influential map of Australia by Nicholas Bellin who at the age of eighteen was made hydrographer to the French Navy and later head of the French Hydrographic Office and official Hydrographer to the King. Bellin was a member of the French intellectual group called the philosophes whose members were the great minds of the French enlightenment. A prolific cartographer of the highest standards whose maps were highly regarded and often copied by European mapmakers. In this map Bellin theoretically completes the east coast of Australia by joining Tasmania, New Guinea and the New Hebrides and further extending the southern coast from the furthest easterly discoveries made by Nuyts in 1627. This map when issued influenced the way Australia was subsequently shown on the majority of maps until Cook&#8217s first voyage discoveries were made public in 1773. It is also one of a handful of eighteenth century maps solely devoted to the Australian continent. His chart records the Dutch discoveries on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula made by Cartenszoon and Coolsteerd 1623, Tasmans first and second voyages 1642-44, on the Western Australian coasts by Hartog 1616, Houtman 1619, the van Leeuwin 1622, on the north west coasts Frederikzoon de Wit 1628 and Nuyt&#8217s on the southern coast 1627. From Prevost&#8217s, Histoire Generales des Voyages.