World map – Jean-François de La Pérouse, 1797

WORLD MAP OF FRANCE’S MOST FAMOUS LOST EXPLORER

“Mappe Monde ou Carte Réduite des Parties Connues du Globe pour servir au Voyage de La Pérouse fait dans les Années 1785, 86, 87 et 88.” [World Map, or Reduced-Scale Map of the Known Parts of the Globe, made to illustrate the Voyage of La Pérouse undertaken in the years 1785 to 1788.] Copper engraving, published in Paris in 1797 as part of the atlas accompanying the official account of the expedition of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Coloured by a later hand. Size approx. 58.5 × 93.5 cm.

The map was compiled from the papers of Jean-François de La Pérouse (1741–1788?) and included in the atlas of his famous voyage of discovery. When the map was published, La Pérouse had already been dead for nearly a decade; his ships and crew had mysteriously vanished in the Pacific Ocean.

The course of his voyage is traced across the oceans with a fine line. Departing from Brest in 1785, La Pérouse sailed around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. Via Easter Island and Hawaii, he reached the northwest coast of America, then proceeded south to California, crossed to Macao and the Philippines, and sailed through the Sea of Japan to Kamchatka. From there he set course southward, via Samoa to New Holland (Australia), where he landed briefly at Botany Bay in early 1788 – at the same time as the arrival of the British First Fleet. Shortly afterwards, the expedition disappeared without a trace.

The map reflects the wealth of information that emerged from La Pérouse’s voyage. During his journey he repeatedly sent journals and charts back to France. His observations led to a greatly improved charting of the northwestern coast of America, northeastern Asia, Australia, and the western Pacific islands. In terms of its impact on cartography and discoveries in the Pacific during the second half of the eighteenth century, his voyage ranked only second to that of James Cook.

La Pérouse dispelled several persistent geographic myths, such as the supposed Gamaland in the North Pacific, though others remained. Chief among these was the long-sought Northwest Passage. The northernmost coasts of the world — in Alaska, Greenland, and “Nouvelle Zelme” (Nova Zembla) — remained incomplete on the map.

A Terra Australis is absent — another myth dismissed by the late eighteenth century. Yet the vast blank spaces of the southern hemisphere still invited further exploration. The southernmost islands included here are the Sandwich Islands, today known as South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, visited by James Cook in 1775.

In the southern Indian Ocean appear the Îles Kerguelen ou la Désolation, discovered by the Breton navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec in 1772 and later visited by Cook. Such references underscore the rivalry between French and British voyages of exploration during the final decades of the eighteenth century.

Price: Euro 1.250,-