Ins Kleine Gebracheti Karte Von Den Sup-Landern

Highly important and influential chart 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 prodigious cartographer of the highest standards, his maps were highly regarded and often copied by European mapmakers. In this map Bellin theoretically completed 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. With the issue of this chart Bellin 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 the handful of eighteenth century maps solely devoted to the Australian continent. His chart shows the Dutch discoveries on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula made by Cartensz in 1623, Tasmans first and second voyages in 1642-44, on the Western Australian coasts by Hartog 1616, Houtman 1619, the van Leeuwin in 1622, de Witt&#8217s 1628 on the north west coasts and Nuyt&#8217s 1627on the southern coast. From Prevost&#8217s, Histoire Generales des Voyages. References CLA MOTA pg 92 ill 6.28 NLA OMD Bib ID 1810325 PER DOA pg 64 ill pl 30 TOO MOA 156 ill pl 9