The original manuscript map, on which the current map is based, resides in the British Museum, formerly in the collections of the Harley family, Earls of Oxford, and of Joseph Banks. It was prepared during the reign of Francois I of France (1515-1547), possibly commissioned by, or for, his son, hence its appellation as "The Dauphin Map". As Dalrymple's note on the map states: "N.B. This Map has on It. The Arms of the Dauphin of France: and, although without date, appears to have been made early in the 16th Century; Because it has Japan, only vaguely expressed, at a remote distance from the Continent, under the name of Zipangri, from the report of Marco Polo: Whereas in the Map, published at Paris in 1575, in "la Cosmographie Universelle" by A. Thevet, Cosmographer to the King of France, the Japan Islands are represented as adjacent to the Continent, and circumstantially described, etc. 22nd February 1790".

The map "enticingly depicts a new world that awaited maritime enterprise at a moment when Normandy had become the centre of trade with Brazil and the East Indies. The Norman ports developed a flourishing trade in brazilwood to supply the cloth-dyers of Rouen, and Norman seafarers under Jean Parmentier had ventured as far as Sumatra, while in 1524 Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano, leading a French expedition, thought he had found a northern sea passage from the Pacific to the Indies (shown on the map as "Gof anto Mer osto" – Gulf to the South Sea" (King).

Whether the map is indeed based on discovery or supposition remains a bone of contention. Dalrymple, long an ardent advocate for an English funded voyage to the Pacific to test his theories of the existence of a Great South Land, but whose place in history as the "discoverer" of Australia ultimately, and bitterly, fell to Captain James Cook, was certain that it does indeed present the findings of true venture,… not in the least because that would mean that his arch rival had not been the first European to "discover" Australia… In a memoir to this map, Dalrymple writes, with some schadenfreude: "The East Coast of New Holland as we name it, is expressed with some curious circumstances of correspondence to Captain Cook's MS".

The publisher
The first hydrographer to the British Admiralty, Alexander Dalrymple (1737-1808) is best known for his researches regarding a great Southern Continent, as well as a proponent of the search for the Northwest Passage (thereby influencing Vancouver's survey). Through family connections, Dalrymple was made a "writer" (the most junior position) for the East India Company and sent to Madras where he arrived in May 1753. He was afforded access to Robert Orme's library and grew increasingly fascinated with the EIC's activities in Burma, Indo-China and Borneo. He turned down a promotion so that he might undertake a voyage to the east of his own. "In February 1759, Pigot freighted the Cuddalore (Captain George Baker) for Dalrymple 'to attempt to discover a new route to China through the Molucca Islands and New Guinea'. Dalrymple made three voyages between 1759 and 1764 to the Philippines, Borneo, and Sulu. In the first, based at Canton (Guangzhou), he reconnoitred Borneo, the Philippines, and the coast of Cochin-China. For the second, in the London in 1762, he had James Rennell as companion for a voyage to Sulu and Balambangan, where he had obtained for the company a grant of land. In Madras in 1763 he went through the formality of resignation, confident of reinstatement, to return to London to promote a trading settlement at Balambangan. En route to Canton for passage to England he became provisional deputy governor at Manila for a short period in April 1764, in the aftermath of the treaty of Paris, and he arrived in London in the summer of 1765 …" (ODNB)

Rare: no examples offered in available records; only two institutional example found, at the National Library of Australia, and at the State Library of New South Wales