'Vooloo-Moloo au Port Jackson', aquatint of Sydney's Harbour and Garden Cove.
Paris: Finot Imp. 1833. Aquatint engraving depicting early Sydney and its harbour, a lovely farmland scene of Woolloomooloo in the foreground with farmers and cows in a field, Port Jackson buildings at the right, and a wooded Garden Island in the distance. After a drawing by Barthelemy Lauvergne, this is plate number 64 from Laplace's "Voyage autour du monde par les mers de l'Inde et de la Chine de la corvette de sa Majeste La Favorite".
Cyrille Pierre Theodore Laplace's (1793 –1875) voyage was motivated by the French desire to re-establish its influence in the Far East. La Favorite sailed from Toulon, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, stopping in India, many southeast Asian cities and China. In Australia, Laplace stopped in Hobart before leaving arriving in Sydney on August 16, 1831. Laplace devotes many pages in 'Voyage' to his highly positive impressions of the city, describing "Farme-Cove" as a delightful landscape, and "Sidney appears in all its splendour ... Sidney-Cove, filled with ships whose masts ... looks like a moving forest. "... you see Fort Macquarie and the Governor's residence with its lawns, its groves and flowerbeds .... In this part of Sidney-Cove .. everything is cheerful" (The French Explorers and Sydney. Colin Dyer. p153).
The crew was warmly welcomed during that visit to Sydney, then headed for New Zealand, where their observations caused concern as to the possibility of a French claim.
Engaved by Sigismond Himely, and with a blind stamp displaying the stern of the corvette 'La Favorite' at the bottom margin of the print. A very faint small crescent of damp at lower right corner, otherwise very clean and crisp impression. Paper measures 18 x 12"; image 15 1/4 x 11 1/2".
OCLC: 872539315 for the Voyage Autour du Monde. OCLC: 220990466. Trove: Libraries Australia ID 8416713 (NLA). Very good condition. Item #21138
Price: $3,000.00