‘Hollandia Nova Terre Australe’

The final state of Thevenot’s seminal map of Australia and the only state that includes the tracks of Abel Tasman’s first voyage 1642-1643.

Thevenot’s important map is the first solely devoted to the Australian continent and the first to record the discoveries made by Abel Tasman on his two voyages of exploration in 1642-1644. The VOC had appointed Tasman on 1 August 1642 as commander of the Heemskerck and Zeehaen, with instructions to explore the unknown and previously undiscovered areas of the South Land, the south-east coast of New Guinea and surrounding islands.

Tasman’s two voyages resulted in the charting of the northern, north-western and southern limits of the continent, as well as the discovery of part of the west coast of New Zealand. The map also records the following earlier 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 and de Wit in the Vianen 1628.Thevenot divides the continent with a meridian set at 135 degrees East of Greenwich; the positioning of this meridian falls along the division set out in the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which divided the newly discovered lands outside of Europe between Spain and Portugal. The lands to the east ‘belonged’ to Portugal and those to the west to Spain.

Mapmakers depiction of the Australian continent was to remain unchanged until the discovery of the east coast by James Cook in 1769.

References:

Clancy p.75, ill. p.82 map 6.12, NLA p.143, ill.p.142, Perry p. 61, pl. 28, Schilder p.198, map 85, Suarez p.208, Tooley p.202, pl 92.