“NAVIRES HOLLANDAIS SUR LA RADE D'AMBOINE” (Îles Moluques)
Ambon Island, Maluku Islands, Indonesia.
From: "Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie" sur les corvettes L'Astrolabe et La Zélée exécuté par ordre du Roi
pendant les Années 1837-1838-1839-1840 sous le commandement de M. Dumont-d'Urville.
First edition, published in Paris by Gide, 1842-1846.
Imprimerie Thierry frères, Paris.
Atlas pittoresque plate 109.
(Douarnenez 1818 - Paris 1866)
French landscape subjets lithographer
Very interesting and detailed early view of Ambon Island Harbour in Indonesia depicting Dutch ships.
Taken after nature by Louis Le Breton (1818-1866) during the famous South Pole and Oceania expedition executed by Jules Dumont d'Urville.
After exploring the southern regions Dumont D’Urville's ships sailed to the Pacific visiting many of the islands, Singapore, Batavia, and reached Hobart at the end of 1839.
After a short period of rest in Hobart the ships headed south again on January 1, 1840, this time reaching about 64°S and found themselves suddenly surrounded by icebergs.
On January 19, land was sighted, it was completely covered with snow so high it was impossible to see the summit.
D’Urville named the coast, Terre Adelie after his wife.
The expedition had established the approximate position of the magnetic pole and d’Urville felt that their task had been accomplished and left Antarctica and headed for New Zealand.
The maps and views were published in the official accounts of the voyage and are between the finest ever produced and intended to reflect France’s rightful place on the international stage.
LeBreton’s lithographs are among the finest made in the C19th.
Embossed blind stamp “Gide Editeur Paris” denoting that is from the original edition of “Voyage au Pole Sud”.
Lithograph printed on wove paper.
Editor dry stamp/cachet at centre bottom margin.
First edition of the famous "Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie" sur les corvettes L'Astrolabe et La Zélée exécuté par ordre du Roi
pendant les Années 1837-1838-1839-1840 sous le commandement de M. Dumont d'Urville.
SIZE: 220mm(H) x 313mm(L) [image]
360mm(H) x 550mm(L) [sheet]
Paper yellowed in the margins outside the image, otherwise in excellent condition.
This lithograph was issued for the subscribers and never bounded in the volume.
Louis Le Breton (1818-1866)
Was a draughtsman, lithographer and surgeon; he was born in Douarnenez, Brittany, on 15 January 1818.
He continued a family tradition by studying medicine although he combined this with a commitment to the sea
by taking his initial training at the Naval Medical School, Brest (1836-37).
Almost immediately after leaving Brest he joined the Astrolabe as 'Surgeon, 3rd Class’,
but early in the voyage his considerable abilities as an artist came to the appreciative attention
of the commander of the expedition, Dumont d’Urville, and brought him additional responsibilities,
especially after the death of Goupil , the expedition’s official artist, at Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land,
on the second of the Astrolabe’s four visits to Australia or Australian waters (Raffles Bay and Port Essington on the northern coast,
March-April 1839; Hobart Town, December 1839-January 1840 and February 1840; Torres Strait, May-June 1840).
In 1844-45 Le Breton was in the Indian Ocean as surgeon on board the Berceau , where his drawings earned further praise,
but this voyage was interrupted by ill-health, a hasty return to France (1846) and a period of convalescence.
Le Breton resigned from his medical functions in 1848 and transferred to the Department of Maps and Charts in Paris where he remained until his death on 30 August 1866.
Barthélemy Lauvergne was one of his colleagues.
While on board the Astrolabe , Le Breton worked both in pencil and watercolour.
An album of pencil drawings (Municipal Library, Saint Brieuc, Brittany) contains a number of works from the Pacific,
although only two have been tentatively identified as being of Australian interest: a pair of studies of cannon appear
to be the source of a detail in a view of Port Essington lithographed for the atlas of plates illustrating the voyage,
while a sketch of a ship aground may represent the Astrolabe in Torres Strait.
A collection of 174 watercolours recording the entire voyage now (with two exceptions) known only from Le Breton’s own manuscript catalogue
contained two views each from Raffles Bay and Port Essington, eleven from Hobart Town, and nine from Torres Strait.
One of the Tasmanian scenes, a competent watercolour of a coach crossing Bridgewater,
survives in the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston; the other is of a New Zealand subject.
Twenty-five unspecified watercolours from this collection were shown at the Paris Salon in 1841 but no critic appears to have commented on them.
It is also known that Le Breton made a number of natural history drawings during the voyage but no originals have been located.