Abel Tasman’s Australia Map
INDIES GALLERY
Abel Tasman’s Discoveries Map Rare collectors map showing the route taken by Abel Tasman (1603-1659?), the great Dutch navigator and explorer on his way rounding the Australian continent and discovering Tasmania, New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji. This chart compiled by Francois Valentyn was included in his 8volume history of the East Indies entitled Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien that was published in Amsterdam by Gerard Onder de Linden and the bookseller Joannes van Bram between 1724 and 1726.
K A A RT d e r R e y s e v a n A B E L TASMAN volgens fyn eygen opftel. VALENTYN, Francois Publication Amsterdam, 1724 - 26 Condition This example is in good condition, the map has been cleaned, and wormholes have been filled up. Study imagers carefully. Dimensions 315 by 475 mm. Price 4900 USD.
This map is a real cornerstone in any Australia map collection and rarely appears on the market.
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Abel Tasman’s Rounding of Australia in the year 1642 and 1643. Leaving Batavia on August 14th 1642 on the ships Heemskerk and Zeehaen, he was commanded by his employer, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Governor-General, Anthony van Diemen to explore the southern hemisphere to determine whether the discontinuous stretches of the northwest and west Australian coasts that had been discovered by Dutch navigators over the previous 35 years were continental and connected with the hypothetical southern continent.
In November 1642 he skirted the southern shores of Tasmania naming it Van Diemen’s Land and in December sighted the west coast of South Island, New Zealand and ventured northwards to the strait separating the North and South Island although he thought he had entered a bay. He left New Zealand in January 1643 at North Cape under the impression that he had probably discovered the west coast of the southern continent. He continued north and on January 21st he discovered Tonga and on February 6th the Fiji Islands. Turning northwest the ship reached New Guinea waters on April 1st and Batavia on June 14th, 1643, completing a 10-month voyage on which only 10 men had died from illness. Tasman had circumnavigated Australia without seeing it thus establishing that it was separated from the hypothetical southern continent.
François Valentijn: A Brilliant Braggart Francois Valentijn (1666–1727) was a minister, naturalist and writer. He is best known for his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien (“Old and New East-India”), a book about the history of the Dutch East India Company and the countries of the Far East. Valentijn was born in 1666 in Dordrecht, Holland, but spent significant time in the tropics, notably in Ambon, in the Maluku Archipelago. In total, Valentijn lived in the East Indies 16 years. Valentijn was first employed by the Dutch V.O.C. or East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) at the age of 19, where he served as Minister to the East Indies. He returned to Holland for about ten years, before returning to the Indies in 1705 where he was to serve as Army Chaplain on an expedition in eastern Java. He again returned to Dordrecht where he wrote his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien (1724–26), a massive work of five parts published in eight volumes and containing over one thousand illustrations and including some of the most accurate maps of the Indies of the time. He died in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1727. Valentijn probably had access to the V.O.C.’s archive of maps and geographic secrets which they had always guarded jealously. Johannes Van Keulen II became Hydrographer to the V.O.C. in the same year Valentijn’s book was published. It was in Van Keulen’s time that many of the VOC charts were published, one signal of the decline of Dutch dominance in Spice Trade. Valentijn was fortunate to have seen his work published, as the VOC (Dutch East India Company) strictly enforced a policy prohibiting former employees from publishing anything about the region or their colonial administration. And while, as Suárez notes, by the mid-18th Century the Dutch no longer feared sharing geographic secrets, the execution of this policy was still erratic and based on personal motives. While Valentijn’s maps and diagrams were prized possessions, his scholarship, judging by contemporary standards, was not of the highest integrity. While current standards of referencing and plagiarism were not in effect during the 18th Century, Valentijn’s borrowed liberally from other scientists’ and writers. E.M Beekman referred to Valentijn as an “exasperating Dutch braggart,” but nevertheless cites him as an important figure and given his writing style, diction and penchant for story, one of the greatest Dutch prose writers of the time — going so far as to suggest comparison between one of the various stories in his work and a Chaucerian tale.
Valentijn’s work is one of the truly great maps showcasing the European geographical knowledge of South and East Asia and Australia from the early 18th Century. ( Refr: Tooley, R.V. )
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