Even in the mid-eighteenth century the complete outline of the Australian continent was only guessed at. Southern Tasmania was firmly on the map but the connection between it and the known South West coast was fanciful. This map includes the coasts discovered and charted more than a century earlier by a series of Dutch navigators including Tasman (West Coast of New Zealand) and Janzoon (West Coast of Cape York Peninsula).
It is one of the earliest collectable maps of Australia to not include the Asian continent or the rest of the world.
Another conjectural feature connects the tip of the fanciful East coast (Cape York) to New Guinea. In reality, Luís Vaz de Torres, who sailed with Pedro Fernandes de Quiros , had passed through the straits between New Guinea and Australia in 1606. However, the Spanish had suppressed his report in the hope of maintaining power via geographic secrecy and its existence was only confirmed by Cook on this first voyage in 1770.
Bellin has also attributed the land Terre du St. Esprit, (Austrialia del Espiritu Santo) discovered by Fernandes de Quiros in 1605, to the fanciful North East coast. This land was actually the island of Vanuatu which is over one thousand miles from the Australian coast.
In the lower right corner, to the southeast, is the coast of New Zealand, which had not been contacted by Europeans since Tasman sailed there in 1642. Bellin's notation suggests that the western coast sketched on his map might be part of a great continent that was antipodal to Europe in the South Seas.
He was continuing a search for the southern continent that had lasted centuries and would not be dampened until Cook’s second voyage in the far southern Pacific proved that no such great continent existed.
Reproduced from the original chart, then hand coloured in the style of the period and digitally printed on premium quality 200 gsm matte (uncoated) paper, framed with shatterproof plexiglass - ready to hang.
