Indiae quae Orientalis

C1635 Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571&#82111638) Third state of this important chart and the first to record the Dutch discoveries on Australia&#8217s west coast. An excellent example of the golden age of Dutch cartography, superbly embellished with cherubs, galleons and a coat of arms flanking a Latinised dedication to Laurens Reael (&#8216Lavrentio Real&#8217), VOC director in Amsterdam and former Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. As a hydrographer for the Dutch East India Company, Blaeu had access to the latest information made by the Dutch in the East Indies. The map shows discoveries made by Dirk Hartog in Western Australia in October 1616, by Jan Carstenz on the western side of the Cape York Peninsula in January 1623 and those on the northwest coast of Australia by de Witt in 1628, first shown on Hessel Gerritsz&#8217s map of 1628 under the name &#8216G.F. de Wits Landt&#8217. Research by Zandvliet (1998) suggests that Hessel Gerritsz, the first official cartographer of the VOC, produced the original map in 1631 or 1632 and that Blaeu, helped by Reael, obtained the copper plate for this new map and four others to add to his two volume Atlas Novus of 1634. On the other hand, Perry has suggested that Hondius Sr. may have also obtained the same information directly from Gerritsz. This is further supported by the fact that the first edition of Blaeu&#8217s map, printed in 1634, is absent of any embellishments usually characteristic of his work and yet Blaeu included it and several others obtained from Gerritsz in the first volume of his Novus. It is probable that he was pressured to insert the map unfinished in this volume due to intense competition in the map publishing business, especially from the Jansson-Hondius firm.