draughtsman, cartographic surveyor and naturalist, entered the French navy at fourteen years of age. He was on board Captain Nicholas Baudin’s great 1800-04 expedition with the corvettes Le G é ographe and Le Naturaliste , which spent five months in Port Jackson. Engravings from the maps he made on the voyage include Plan du Port du Roi-George and Carte de la Terre d’Edels et d’une Partie de Celle Endracht (à la Nouvelle Hollande) .
In 1817 de Freycinet was given command of the Uranie and left France to sail around the world, visiting Western Australia and New South Wales en route. On his return he published an account of the voyage, Voyage autour du monde, enterpris par ordre du Roi…execute sur les corvettes de S.M. l’Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820 (1824-44), comprising 12 volumes of text and four large atlases containing about 320 engraved plates and 35 maps. The first English translation of the Australian section did not appear until 2001, although the Atlas Historique has numerous Australian views and plates and there are a number of Australian subjects in the natural history atlases. Although most of the illustrations were by the artists on board the Uranie , Jacques Arago , Adrien Taunay and Alphonse Pellion , two unattributed architectural views depicting St John’s Church and Government House at Parramatta were probably by de Freycinet himself. At a Sotheby’s London auction in 2002 the Historic Houses Trust (New South Wales) Foundation purchased de Freycinet’s pen and ink drawing of the plan and elevation of the Sydney Barracks’ building (c.1819) – one of the earliest surviving records of the Barracks and one of the earliest architectural drawings made in Australia.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 1989
