Tag Archives: Expedition

The King’s Orders to Lapérouse

08 Friday Mar 2013

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LaPerouse
A faithful reproduction

By Stewart Reed

Destined for another institution, a reproduction of ‘the famous La Pérouse picture’ found its way to the Mitchell Library in 1912.

On prominent display in last year’s Napoleon: Revolution to Empire exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria was Nicolas-André Monsiau’s Louis XVI Giving Final Instructions to the Comte de la Pérouse. The oil painting, completed in 1817, was on loan from the Palace of Versailles.

What few visitors would have known is that the State Library of NSW has held another version of this painting for just over a century. Continue reading →

Cartography of Easter Island in the 18th century - La Perouse Bay

01 Saturday Sep 2012

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Four expeditions led by Europeans visited Easter Island during the course of the 18th century.
The Dutch expedition led by Jacob Roggeveen revealed, in 1722, the existence of this isolated land in the South Pacific, its discovery on Easter Sunday giving rise to its name.
In 1770, the Spanish sent a surveying expedition from Callao in Peru to this island which they considered to be in their zone of influence, although it lies almost 4,000 km from the coast of Chili. Led by Don Felipe Gonzalez y Haedo and composed of two ships, the San Lorenzo and the frigate Santa Rosalia, the expedition anchored on the northern side of the island on the 16th November in a bay immediately baptized ‘Gonzalez y Haedo’. Continue reading →

Two historic ceremonies

28 Saturday Jun 2008

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180 years ago to the day, the Laperouse Monument was completed. The monument and the Receveur Tomb were the brainchild of Hyacinthe de Bougainville who laid the foundation stone for the monument on September 6, 1835. Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, himself a man of science, generously granted the land on which the Monument and the Tomb now stand. Marc Riviere provides a full account of this in “The Governor’s Noble Guest” and here is a link to a paper on the subject: “In Honour of a Fellow Explorer” To celebrate the occasion and also the 220th anniversary of l’expédition La Pérouse à Botany Bay the Capitaine de Vaisseau Bruno Juet, Commander Benoît Rouvière, unveiled a plaque.

Later in the day the 90th anniversary of the Armistice was celebrated at Memorial Park, Soldiers Settlement Matraville.