Name/TitleVoyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes
About this objectThe account of Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the Pacific in 1802. First edition.
The official account of the Baudin-Freycinet expedition, one of the most important early explorations of Australia, sent out by the French government in 1800 with orders to survey the Australian coast. Commanded by Nicolas Baudin, the expedition left France in 1800 and sailed via Mauritius to the Australian coast in the region of Cape Leeuwin, arriving in May 1801. Péron sailed as a naturalist on the expedition and Freycinet as a cartographer.
The vessels GEOGRAPHE and NATURALISTE visited Tasmania and went on to Sydney. They then undertook a complete survey of the southern coast and an examination of the northern coast before returning to Mauritius where, near the end of 1803, Baudin died. The narrative of the expedition was begun by Péron and completed by Freycinet after Péron's death. The French and English had completed their circumnavigations of the Australian continent at approximately the same time, but Flinders' imprisonment by the French on Mauritius meant that it was this French account which contained the first complete and detailed chart of the Australian continent to appear in print.
The series of portraits of Aborigines represents the most accurate depictions of Australian aborigines to be found in any of the early voyage accounts. The Silentworld Foundation holds a number of the original sketches from which these plates were drawn.
MakerM. F. Péron - Author
Maker RoleAuthor
Date Made1807-1816
Period19th century
Place MadeParis, France
Place NotesPublished
Medium and MaterialsPaper and ink
Object TypeBooks
Object numberSF001498
Copyright Licence
Attribution - Non-commercial - No Derivatives (cc)
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The mug is decorated with an underglaze and a blue transfer print. On the body, it is titled ‘Emigrants to Australia’. This type of body and glaze was discontinued by 1840. Comparison of the handle shape and the profile of the foot, point to the attribution of manufacture by the Davenport Factory.
Delta was a ship-rigged vessel with two decks and three masts. It was built in Dordrecht, Netherlands in 1839 at the shipyard of Jan Schouten and registered in the same port. Its hull was constructed of oak and sheathed in ‘yellow metal’. Delta was owned by H. van der Sande at the time of its loss and was engaged as a cargo trader.
The Delta carried 29 crew and passengers, while sailing from Melbourne to Batavia in ballast when wrecked at Kenn Reefs on 30 May 1854 whilst under the command of Captain J.G. Kunst. This vessel loss supports the pattern of shipwrecks located on a well-travelled shipping route that was poorly charted until the mid-nineteenth century. The crew of the Delta could see four other shipwrecks at Kenn Reefs at the time of their vessel’s loss.
Important image of a ship associated with Matthew Flinders, that would shortly become one of the most famous early shipwrecks in eastern Australian waters. This is a fine ship’s portrait, by one of the great exponents of the art