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With A Manuscript Annotation Describing the Sinking of the Anoinette Cezard off Port Phillip in May 1854.

Detailed French Sea Chart of the Pacific, published in Paris in 1851, which was used by two ships in Australia, the first having wrecked near Port Phillip in May 1854.

The map tracks the voyage of the Antoinette Cezard, which was then arriving from London to Melbourne.  The first notes (in the hand of "B.T.") shows the position of the Antoinette Cezard southwest of the tip of Australia on April 23, 1854, in bound from the Indian Ocean to Port Phillip. At this point, the ship apparently struck Corsair Rock on May 2 or May 3, 1854 and sunk. The details are set forth below.  

The chart was apparently salvaged in Port Phillip and acquired by a different French sailor, who included a note describing the sinking of the Antoinette Cezard on May 3, 1854 and then shows the tracks of the Aristide Marie over the next several months, giving the tracks of the voyage from Melbourne, passing through the Bass Strait in about June 1854 and proceeding to Sydney and then north towards the area of Darwin, with the tracks ending north of tje Gouldburns Islands in the Arafura Sea.

The Australian shipping records put the Aristide Marie in Victoria in May, 1854 (including Port Phillip on about May 25, 1854) and later arriving in the port of Sydney, arriving from Melbourne, on July 3, 1854.

Prior to that, a note puts the Aristide Marie in San Francisco in July and August 1851 (" French barque Aristide Marie to sail in a week" and " French barque Aristide Maria, Lescure, 240 days from Bordeaux, via Valparaiso 75 days. Merchandise to Loubert. Four passengers. One female.: ).

Antoinette Cezard Wreck

Below Australia, a lengthy annotations describes the wreck of the Antoinette Cezard in May 1854, which translates as follows:

On May 3rd 1854, while entering in Port-Philippe Bay, l'Antoinette Cezard struck [Corsair] rock on which she stayed for almost three minutes while receiving terrible shakings, she finally passed through and went stranded at Point Nepan  while two hours later her hold was full of water."

F. P.

The Antoinette Cezard was a French ship, built France, 1852; registered in Bordeaux and in Melbourne in 1854.  Sailing under the command of a Captain Marin from London to Melbourne with general cargo and nine passengers, the ship struck Corsair Rock, Point Nepean, and under advice from pilot Draper, was run aground on Swan Island on May 2, 1854.   She had attempted to enter Port Phillip without a pilot.

Over the course of the next several weeks, the contents were offloaded to Port Phillip.  The last of the cargo of the Antoinette Cezard reached Port Phillip in a brig towed by Capt. Ashby of the Washington, steam tug.  The ship was later refloated, repaired and returned to service as the ship Thomas & Ann Cole.

The Robiquet chart is rare. The annotations provide an interesting contemporary snapshot of the wreck and passing of the chart among French sailors.