A very rare proof state of Willem Blaeu’s map of South East Asia. It is significant as being the first popular map to depict part of Australia, here shown as likely being a part of New Guinea. To the bottom right the west coast of Carpentaria is illustrated with the following names: ‘t Hoge Landt’, ‘Rivier van Speult’, ‘Rivier Batavia’, ‘Water plaets’, Rivier Coen’, ‘Vereenighde Rivier’, ‘Rivier Nassau’, ‘Staten Rivier’, ‘G.F.de Wits landt’, ‘Willems Rivier’, ‘t Landt van D’Eendracht’ and ‘Trail’. According Simon Dewez: ‘In this first incomplete state the map is of utmost importance, as it was the first regional map in an atlas to show the Dutch discoveries of Australia and the first to chart those discoveries on both the west coast of Australia and Cape York Peninsula’. It records Australia before the discoveries of Abel Tasman a decade later. 

This proof state includes large blank areas where in later states decorative embellishments are added, including the dedication cartouche. At this stage the map contains only the basic elements of the map, its geographical outline and nomenclature. The title ‘Indiae Quae Orientalis’ is yet to be added. The map extends from the area of present-day Afghanistan in the west to Japan and the Korean peninsula in the north east, here labelled ‘Corea insula’.

Van Langren’s world map c.1626 also illustrated Dutch awareness of Australia but failed to include much detail. Here the discoveries of Carstensz in 1623 made on the west coast of Cape York are recorded. It doesn’t refer to those made by Van Colster in the ‘Arnhem’ further to the west. The two were separated on their return home. The small portion of the west coast of Australia illustrated is drawn from the discoveries of Hartog in 1616 ‘t Landt van Eendracht’, Leneart Jacobszoon in the ‘Mauritius’, ‘Willems Revier’, and those of de Witt in 1628, ‘G.F. de Wits Landt’.

This map was included in this unfinished state in some examples of the German edition of the ‘Novus Atlas’ published in 1634. Indeed, only four known examples bear the map.

Atlas. St. Michael Gymnasium, Bad Munstereifel, Germany
Atlas. Forschungsbibliothek, Gotha, Germany (MCN IV p. 25)
Atlas. Saltykov-Shchendrin Library, St. Petersburg, Russia
Atlas. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Austria
Map. Tooley Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra (no text on verso)
Map. Private Collection in Australia, sold by Simon Dewez, 1996
Map. Burden Collection
Map. Private Collection in Australia (1998, ex Swaen)

V.d.Krogt, ‘Atlantes Neerlandici’, Vol 2, 2:131.1/ 8400.2; Schilder ‘Australia Unveiled’, p. 322, map 40; Schilder MCN IV p. 25; Tooley ‘The Mapping of Australia’ 223.