Freycinet, Louis de
Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes. Historique [Atlas. Deuxième Partie]
£6,048
Auction: 05 February 2025 from 10:00 GMT
Description
Paris: [Imprimerie Imperiale], 1811. Large 4to (31.5 x 26cm), atlas volume, second part, only comprising title, index pages and 14 maps (two of which are folding), marbled calf with gilt foliate borders to covers, spine gilt with black morocco lettering pieces, some minor rubbing to covers, joints a little weak and splitting slightly, a couple of very neatly repaired closed tears to folding maps, some minor foxing, small, light, marginal dampstain to final map, one early ink mark mainly affecting fore-edges
Footnote
De Freycinet’s work is notable for containing the first detailed and complete map of Australia.
Louis de Freycinet (1779-1841) acted as the cartographer and surveyor for Nicolas Thomas Baudin’s expedition to the Southern and South-Western Coasts of Australia in 1800. Subsequently, he captained the schooner Casuarina around the Australian coastline from 1802-1803, in particular reaching Van Diemen's Land (today’s Tasmania) before heading to Sydney and finally returning to France in 1804. Baudin had passed away in Mauritius in 1803.
The first inshore circumnavigation of Australia (at the time New Holland) had been undertaken by the British Royal Navy officer, Matthew Flinders, between 1791 and 1803. It is probable that Flinders would have had the honour of producing the first complete map of Australia had he not been arrested by the French in Mauritius on his return journey. Flinders’s six-year imprisonment offered de Freycinet the opportunity to publish the large folding map of Australia, contained herein, in 1811, three years before Flinders was able to produce his work.
De Freycinet’s Atlas is central to the history of European exploration of Australia, showing a clear French claim on the land. Hill points out the De Freycinet: "entirely ignored the discoveries of British explorers, and depicted the whole of the south coast, from what is now Melbourne to the border of Western Australia, as the 'Terre Napoleon'"