One of the first printed records of Abel Tasman's discoveries of the Australian coastline, published in the first edition of Melchisedec Thevenot's 'Relations de Divers Voyages Curieux qui n'ont point esté publiées, ou qui ont esté traduites d'Hacluyt, de Purchas et d'autres voyages Anglais, Hollandais, Portugais, Allemands, Espagnols, et de quelques Persans, Arabes et auteurs orientaux' (1663). Based on Joan Blaeu's wall map of Asia and Australia, 'Archipelagus Orientalis, sive Asiaticus' (1659), Australia's "birth certificate", and the progenitor of the shape of the nation for 100 years.

The 'Relations…', was a monumental collection of voyages and exploration, a continuation of the compilations of Haklyut and Purchas, with the addition of accounts of exploration in the southern oceans, the East Indies, China and Arabia, and intended to help France achieve her colonial and international trade ambitions. Issued in five parts over more than thirty years, between 1663 and 1696. Part I included an account of one of the truly legendary voyages undertaken in perilously small open boats, Pelsaert's voyage from the Abrolhos to Batavia in June and July of 1629, an extraordinary feat of endurance in extremis, and illustrated with the large folding map 'Terre Avstrale decouverte l'an 1644', as here.

'Hollandia Nova, detecta 1644' - New Holland, revealed 1644 – shows the western side of the continent, and a vast expanse between New Guinea, New Zealand and Van Dieman's Land, is designated 'Terre Australe, decouverte l'an 1644' - Terra Australia, discovered 1644. Thevenot, expanding on Blaeu, divides the continent in two at longitude 135 E. The line "separating 'Hollandia Nova' and 'Terre Australe' correlated to the western limit of Spanish claims in the South Pacific arising from the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494. Thevenot was essentially reusing the Spanish boundary to open up the land east of New Holland to French interests. In effect, he was signaling what many in the French administration were then advocating: that France should emulate the Dutch in ensuring that the fledgling French East India Company had access to foreign markets... when the British government drew up the boundaries of the colony of New South Wales in 1788, it set the western limit at the meridian of 135 degrees east of Greenwich, just as it appeared on Thevenot's map" (Woods).

This is a fine example of the third state with an unusually wide left-hand margin, in which rhumb lines have been added for the first time, and the error in degrees of latitude has been corrected.

The mapmakers
Abel Jansz. Tasman (c1603-1659), was the first European explorer to reach and map the coastlines of Tasmania and New Zealand. After a series of shipwrecks had revealed some of the western coast of Australia, he was chosen by Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, to lead a voyage of discovery to the south, in 1642. The intention was to find a sea route south of Nuyts land, and east across the Pacific to South America. In his ships, the 'Heemskerck' and 'Zeehaen', over a course of ten months, Tasman mapped the coast of southwest Tasmania, the west coast of New Zealand, and the island groups of Tonga and New Guinea. A second voyage, in 1644, Tasman and crew surveyed the southwest coast of New Guinea, and much of Australia's northern coastline, as here.

Although the longed for southern sea route was not found,… the easterly's were too strong, Tasman was awarded the rank of commandeur on his return, and a pay rise was backdated to the beginning of his first voyage. Subsequently, Tasman was "appointed to the Council of Justice at Batavia. In mid-1647 he was sent on a mission to the King of Siam and was granted precedence over all Dutchmen in the kingdom. After that mission, he was given command of a fleet of eight vessels which sailed in May 1648 against the Spaniards. His conduct in this operation was unsatisfactory and, after his return in January 1649, proceedings were taken against him for having, when inflamed by liquor, treated one of his sailors in a barbarous way; as a result, he was removed from office during the governor-general's pleasure. He was formally reinstated in January 1651, but not long afterwards retired from the service and became a merchant in Batavia. He died there in affluent circumstances in 1659" (Forsyth).

Melchisedech Thevenot (1620-1692) was a French diplomat, scientist, and travel writer. He was a scholar with interests in mathematics, physics, and medicine, acting as the patron of several early scientific societies and most notably contributing to the formation of the Academie des Sciences. His early career included two missions to Italy in the 1640s and 1650s, and it was there that he first developed an interest in the study of Oriental languages. In 1663, he published the first part of his 'Relations de Divers Voyages', a work that would secure his reputation as one of the most important travel compilers of the seventeenth century. He would go on to publish a second and third part in 1666, a fourth in 1672, and a final fifth part was being assembled in 1692 when Thevenot died.