Emanuel Bowen (c.1693-1767) was one of the most prominent figures in English cartography during the middle of the eighteenth century. He provided the maps for the second expanded edition of John Harris’ ‘Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca. Or, a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels’ published in 1744-48 in two volumes. It is from the first volume of this work that this fine uncommon map of Australia is found. It is the FIRST ENGLISH MAP OF AUSTRALIA. It is derived directly from Melchisédec Thevenot’s seminal map of 1644, showing the Dutch discoveries in the region.

The map by Bowen differs by including the Tropic of Capricorn along with the prominent latitude bar. There are two legends on the map; the upper block states that no assumptions have been made. Hence the map bears little information of the east coast. The lower text describes the country in glowing terms: ‘It is impossible to conceive a Country that promises fairer from its situation, than this of Terra Australia; no longer incognita, as this map demonstrates …’ A legend along the south coast records ‘This is the Countrey seated according to Coll: Purry in the best Climate in the World’. Purry had been in the employ of the Dutch East India Company and was interested in encouraging the Dutch, French and English to settle in Nuyts’ land. It was another thirty years before Captain James Cook defined the eastern shore and virtually every missing shoreline in New Zealand also. The whole is finished with a fine baroque title cartouche and compass rose. Provenance: private English collection. Clancy (1995) p. 91, fig. 6.25; Nordenskiold (1979) no. 487; Perry (1982) pp. 60-63; Perry & Prescott (1996) 1744.01; Shirley (2004) G.Harr 1a no. 7; Tooley (1979b) 241, pl.12; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).