Voyage de LA COQUILLE - Mollusques No. 12
ArtistAfter
Rene Primevere Lesson
(1794 - 1849)
Engraver
Jean Coutant
(French, 1776 - 1831)
Date1826 - 1830
Object number00001478
NameEngraving
MediumInk on paper
DimensionsOverall: 500 mm
ClassificationsArt
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionPlate 12 from the Zoology Atlas of Duperrey's account of his voyage on LA COQUILLE. This plate from Mollusques No. 12 is titled ''Universibranche Arborescent (Homopneusis frondosus. Less). Ile de Waigiou' and depicts t
Waigeo is an island in West Papua province of eastern Indonesia. The island is also known as Amberi, or Waigiu. It is the largest of the four main islands in the Raja Ampat Islands archipelago, between Halmahera and about 65 kilometres (40 miles) to the north-west coast of New Guinea.HistoryRené Primevère Lesson was a pharmacist and naval sural surgeon and served on Duperrey's round-the-world voyage of LA COQUILLE as a naturalist and ship's doctor. During the course of the voyage he was joined by fellow surgeon Prosper Garnot and second officer Dumont d'Urville in collecting a significant number of natural history specimens.
On Lesson's return to Paris, he spent many years preparing the scientific findings of the voyage, many of which were published in 'Voyage autour du monde entrepris par ordre du Gouvernement sur la corvette LA COQUILLE'. Some of the impressive plates in the volumes were illustrated by his wife Clémence Dumont de Sainte-Croix and her sister Zoë Dumont de Sainte-Croix. Lesson continued with his medical endeavours and published his significant knowledge of ship medicine in the two volume 'Manuel d'histoire naturelle medicale, et de pharmacographie'.
Lesson's interests were wide ranging and in his account of the LA COQUILLE voyage he also records some language of New Zealand Maori language and a selection of languages of New South Wales where the expedition stayed in Sydney for two months in 1824. Here Duperrey and Lesson's met Kuringgai elder Bungaree and Lesson's travelled inland to the Blue Mountains.
SignificanceThere was strong French interest in the Pacific region that had begun well before the voyage of the LA COQUILLE. While national pride and British rivalry played a role in continuing exploration, the collection of scientific knowledge and understanding of this unknown region was certainly also at play. There was great interest in the accounts of the voyages and the high quality of illustrations and plates in these publications are representative of the significance of the collections.
