Carte de l'Ocean Oriental ou Mer des Indes. Bellin Indian Ocean map c1758.

by Bellin, Jacques Nicolas

Carte de l'Ocean Oriental ou Mer des Indes: pour server a l’histoire générale des voyages, dressée par M. Bellin Ingenieur de la marine. Antique chart of the Eastern Ocean or Indian Sea, with numerous rhum lines across the expanse of ocean between Africa and Australia (Hollandia Nova), and north to Asia.

Original copperplate engraved map by Jacques Nicolas Bellin for his Hydrographique Francais sea-atlas which was published with L’Abbe Prevost’s L’Histoire Generale des Voyages (General History of Voyages of the Abbot Antoine Francois Prevost).

There are seven place names along the west coast of Asutralia, including “Baye des Chiens Marins veue par Dampierre en 1699” (Bay of Sea Dogs (Sharks) seen by Dampier in 1699, and named Sharks Bay by him) and “Coste veue par Mr. Duquesne en 1687” (coast seen by Dusquesne in 1687). The title of this map is repeated across the base in Dutch, and the notations within the map appear in French and English, for the Dutch edition published in Amsterdam in 1758 by J.V. Schley. This map's rococo cartouche is surmounted by a finer engraving of more appropriate style than the mechanical and even modern-looking oval supported by two poles, on the edition of this map published in Paris in 1753.

This map was issued within a small publication, and has obvious creases from this. This map measures 426 x 575mm (16.3/4 x 22.5/8 inches).

Appointed Hydrographical Engineer of the French Navy and Hydrographer to the King, Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772), was commissioned to survey all the known coastlines of the world. Bellin would no doubt have obtained much information for his maps from the latest information of Dutch cartographers, as Dutch map-makers were among the finest in the 17th-18th century. Bellin on the other hand acquired a reputation as one of the cartographers who established the theoretical school of map-making. His Carte Reduites des Terres Australes (Reduced Chart of the Southern Lands) is probably the best known (and enjoyed) inaccurate map of Australia - showing as it does a dotted line along Bellin's hypothetical east coast..