Bateau pilote de Dielie

Maker Marie-Joseph Alphonse Pellion

Date1817-1820

Object number00037887

NameDrawing

MediumWatercolour and ink

DimensionsImage: 197 × 275 mm
Overall: 280 × 379 mm, 0.42 kg
Mount / Matt size (B Fini Mount): 407 × 560 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionAn original ink and watercolour sketch by J Alphonse Pellion and is titled 'Bateau pilote de Dielie' [The boat of the Dili pilot, (Timor)]. The image depicts the French ship URANIE in the background with a Dili pilot boat in the foreground. At the bottom centre the work is inscribed 'Mettre sur le 1er dessin de l' entree de la riviere de coupang ' ancre en bois de ce bateau malais bateau pilote de dielie' [Entry of the Coupang River - anchor wood of this Malaysian boat pilot boat of Dili']. In November 1818 the URANIE anchored at Dili in Portuguese Timor. The vessel was guided to a safe anchorage by the Dili pilot shown here leading the URANIE. The governor, Don Jose Pinto Alcoforado d'Azevedo e Souza proved a courteous host throughout the French visit. HistoryAlphonse Pellion was a midshipman aboard the French expedition vessel URANIE, commanded by Captain Louis de Freycinet. Pellion assisted the official artists Arago and Taunay during the three year voyage. Louis de Freycinet was a French naval officer who had participated in the Baudin expedition (1800 - 1804). As one of the crew of LE NATURALISTE, he was held in high regard by Captain Baudin and eventually entrusted with the command of one of the expedition's auxiliary vessels - the CASUARINA, a 20 ton schooner purchased in Port Jackson - in which de Freycinet was tasked to carry out independent surveys of parts of the southern and western Australian coast during 1803. As a result of Baudin's death in 1803, the task of writing the expedition report fell to scientist Francois Peron. When Peron died in 1810, Louis de Freycinet completed the voyage account and charts. On the strength of this work, de Freycinet was promoted to the rank of ''Capitaine de vaisseau'' and given command of a new expedition. De Freycinet sailed from Toulon in September 1817 in command of the URANIE and subsequently spent three years at sea. His expedition explored parts of South America and Australia as well as many islands in the East Indies and Pacific Ocean. In 1819 the URANIE left Sydney to sail home via Cape Horn but was subsequently wrecked in the Falkland Islands in February 1820. After several months the expedition was rescued by an American whaleship MERCURY which de Freycinet later purchased and named the PHYSICIENNE. The expedition finally reached Le Havre in November 1820. During the expedition's visit to Sydney in 1819, Pellion made a number of trips, including a visit across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst in late November, early December 1819. Many of Pellion's drawings were later published in the official account - 'Voyage autour du monde : fait par ordre du roi sur les corvettes de S.M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les annes 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820 : Atlas historique, Paris, 1825'.SignificanceThis image from the URANIE expedition commanded by Louis de Freycinet between 1817 and 1820 highlights continuing French interest in the Pacific following the Bourbon restoration.