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Description

Fine example of the Sir Thomas Phillipps edition of Nicholas Vallard's manuscript map, now widely believed to be one of the earliest detailed maps to show any portion of Australia, the original of which now resides in the Huntington Library.

This beautiful map of 'Jave la Grande', published in 1856, is based on a chart by Nicholas Vallard from his 1547 manuscript atlas produced in Dieppe, France, between 1540 and 1570. This map was made to promote the dispersal of Sir Thomas Phillipps's cartographic collection, which was acquired in the 1920s by Henry E. Huntington. Some suggest that this landmass depicts the eastern coastline of Australia and was a result of the explorations made by Cristóvão de Mendonça. In 1521, King Joao III sent Mendonça to claim new lands for Portugal before Ferdinand Magellan could do the same for Spain.

The map is decorated with an elaborate scene of an Asiatic village surrounded by trees bearing tropical fruit and vegetation. In the background, several warring tribes and a rocky, mountainous landscape can be seen, while on the side panels are four mythological scenes. The sea is richly decorated with several imaginary sea monsters, a compass rose and a galleon in full sail. The map is oriented with north to the bottom and when rotated 180 degrees, the charting closely resembles the east coast of Australia from Cape York Peninsula, south to Wilson's Promontory and west to the South Australian gulfs and Kangaroo Island.

The controversy over whether the map depicts a part of the Australian continent dates back to at least the 18th Century. The inclusion of various Portuguese place names on the large landmass named 'Jave la Grande', is offered as support for the claim that the Portuguese were the first to discover Australia. The Portuguese presence in Timor and various points of archaeological and anecdotal evidence have been used to support this underlying case. The assertion that the 'Jave la Grande' landmass depicted in this and several other Dieppe maps is Australia, was first proposed by Alexander Dalrymple of the Royal Society in 1786, and was later advanced by several others during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including R.H. Major (1859), George Collingridge (1895), Kenneth McIntyre (1977), Roger Herve (1983), Helen Wallis (1980s) and Lawrence Fitzgerald (1984). More recent scholarship by Fitzgerald and Peter Trickett, has argued that this map could have been based on multiple Portuguese navigational charts which were then misaligned by the mapmakers at Dieppe.

The map is an exceptional chromolithographic copy of the original, which has been heighted in gold. The National Library of Australia notes two states of this map, one with the imprint (as here) and one without. One of 15 maps of the known world appearing in the Vallard Atlas, it is from the 'Dieppe School' of French cartography. This group of mapmakers borrowed heavily on the work of other European nations especially the Portuguese.

The Phillipps chromolithographs, made at the time when Phillipps still owned the original Vallard Atlas, are highly prized for their beauty and represent propsectively the earliest obtainable map of any part of the Australian continent.

Condition Description
Manuscript map printed in facsimile by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Middle Hill, 1856. Chromolithograph heightened with gold.
Reference
Reinhartz pp.70-71, 74,136, ill.pp.70-71,137, Schilder pp.21-22, Suarez (A) ill. fig.3, p.13.