
1642–1644
‘Bonaparte’ map of Tasman's second voyage

Carten dese landen Zin ontdeckt bij de compangie ontdeckers behaluen
het norder deelt van noua guina ende het West Eynde van Java dit Warck
aldus
[Bonaparte Tasman map]
‘Map these lands were discovered by the Company's
explorers except for the northern part of New Guinea and the west end of
Java’.
manuscript map, hand-coloured; 73.0 x 95.0 cm
State Library of New South
Wales
See also: nla.gov.au/nla.map-nk1791
By the 1640s, the Dutch had formed a reasonable idea of the shape of much of Australia. The Bonaparte map, one of the few sources for Tasman’s second voyage (for which there is no journal) is one of the most famous and beautiful maps by a Dutch cartographer. It shows the extent of Dutch power in south-east Asia, and it shows Dutch cartography at its height. The west coast of New Zealand, which was sighted by Tasman, is also shown. On the map, there is an inscription which translates as:
Company’s New Netherland. In the east of the great land of New Guinea with the first known South Land being one land and joined all together as can be [seen] by this dotted track, by the yachts Limmen, Zeemeeuw, and the quel d’Bracq Anno 1644. (Gunther Schilder, Australia Unveiled, p.354)
