One of the early French navigators whose collection will be viewed in La Rochelle on the OAS Pre-2020 Parcours Tour of South West France.
By Pierre Laffont
Dumont d’Urville survived three circumnavigations of the earth including through the then-unchartered waters of the South Pacific. He named many locations previously unknown to Europeans, most of them with a local name transcribed from his attempt to understand the local language. He was also the first man to set foot on the Antarctica in 1840, only to perish in 1842 alongside his wife and son in a train accident between Paris and Versailles aged only 52!
Dumont d’Urville invented the term Melanesia in 1831. He divided Oceania into four parts: Polynesia; Micronesia; Malaysia, and Melanesia. At that time, Melanesia was a new geographical concept, the other ones were not. He submitted a memoir to the Societe de Geographie in Paris in December 1831, with the first map showing the four regions. The text of the memoir itself may not be the best monument to his glory. It displays many racial prejudices common to his time, which makes it difficult reading today. But in essence, the subdivision was quite accurate and has been widely adopted.
He was among the first to make available to Europeans through the mass medium of this time, lithographs, a representation of Oceanic materials. These lithographs made many dream about the wonders of Melanesia. He also brought to Europe many artefacts. Some of them are on display in the Musee d’Histoire Naturelle de La Rochelle.
Fascination with both Oceanic Art and early Pacific voyagers is not uncommon with European collectors. I am one of them. In 2005, Anthony Meyer offered me the opportunity to acquire a Nusu Nusu Canoe Prow Ornament which was on display in his Paris gallery. The Nusu Nusu had an impeccable provenance: no less than from one of Dumont d’Urville’s voyages. Dumont sailed twice to the Solomon Islands, the first time in 1828 to establish that La Perouse had indeed perished in 1788 in a shipwreck on the Solomon Islands, more precisely on a coral reef off Vanikoro island. Ten years later, in 1838, Dumont returned to pay his respects to La Perouse: a sort of 50th anniversary celebration. I did not ask from which one of the two voyages the Nusu Nusu originated. The asking price, around €50,000 at the time, was enough to silence me. Anthony assured me that it was an excellent investment which would pay for the education of my four-year-old daughter Adele.
Adele owes her name to Dumont d’Urville’s wife. Dumont has scattered the earth with her name. He might have longed for her with three voyages around the world, all of them more than three years long. And always on the same boat. He may have spent more time on his ship than with his wife at home! As second in command of La Coquille from 1822 to 1825, and then as captain, renaming the La Coquille the L’Astrolabein honor of La Perouse’s ship (no superstition there), from 1826 to 1829 and then again from 1837 to 1840.
When she was just six months old and easy to carry, I took my daughter to Astrolabe Bay opposite Adele Island in New Zealand’s Tasman National Park, at the tip of the South Island. When comparing the lithograph of 1831 and my more recent pictures, the landscape has not changed since d’Urville spent a week of reconnaissance in January 1827. However the Maori village is no longer there, even if Adele Island has been renamed recently Motuareronui/Adele Island.
But I did not follow Antony Meyer’s advice : I did not buy Dumont d’Urville’s Nusu Nusu though I may be better off now if I had. More modestly I started to collect lithographs of Dumont d’Urville’s voyages. Little did I know at the time that the first voyage of l’Astrolabe had produced over 485 of them and that I would make it a long pursuit to acquire all of them. In fact I know now that Dumont was not only a compulsive voyager, but also a compulsive writer and editor. The whole publication of the first voyage weighs more than 50kg.
I started small, acquiring one lithograph here, one there, mostly Melanesian and Polynesian scenes. I could not afford the various views of Australia, and especially Sydney. After 15 years of random acquisitions, and only 20 lithographs carefully framed, I realized that I would run out of time and out of wall space: I had to change tactics if I were to ever reach my goal. So a few years ago I started to chase the whole collection. Such a hunt has become easier these days. No one needs any longer to visit bookshops or auction houses in distant countries. Anyway, bookshops have all but disappeared, except the most exclusive ones such as Horden House in Sydney. However, all of them are online. Thank you, Abbe Book and Invaluable, or curse you, one or the other. But even now, the temptation is always hampered by the scarcity of the conquest and, when it is in sight, by the size of your wallet.
Recently, I received an alert email that the whole collection was being sold at an auction in Berlin. The book description was quite thorough, but it was in German only. After automatic translation in English with Google Translate and my personal interpretation of some gibberish, it read as follows:
« First Edition of Voyage de la corvette l’Astrolabe exécuté par ordre du Roi pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829.
10 volumes of text in a total of 25 sub-volumes in Quarto or in the Grand Quarter, as well as 4 volumes in Folio. With altogether 2 steel engravings with vignette, lithographical portrait, 393 lithographic plates (of 431, of which 201 are colored) and 54 steel plates (of which 1 area-colored and 26 double-paged). The catalogue entry read:
“The journey is one of the most prolific scientific ventures in Oceania’s history of development … a landmark in Pacific Ocean exploration” (Henze). The magnificently engraved or lithographic panels show numerous views, as well as butterflies, birds, fish, mammals, bats, snails, shells, mollusks, plants, customs of the indigenous population as well as map material of the traveled region.
Buying online can be quite unnerving, not so much for the auction process itself, but due to the fact that I had only the faintest idea of what I was been bidding for. What are 25 lines for a set of 25 books? The description could not be exhaustive, and I had to assume that the two lithographs reproduced were the most flattering (a black baboon from the Maluku Islands and a scene of King George Harbour from New Holland).
The estimate was also far beyond any reasonable sum I could justify to anyone in any sort of basic need. But today, Adele has finished her secondary education and no one asks me to pay for the university fees thanks to systems where students burden themselves (or their government) with debt to cover the cost of whatever they study. And if I kept it quiet, I could possibly go along with the purchase without a barrage of preemptive questions on my sanity from my inquisitive daughter. Collecting is one of the hardest addictions to cure.
In the dark of the night (although it was midday in Berlin) when everyone was asleep at home, I switched on the laptop and connected to the Invaluable website. I was so anxious not to miss it that I was the first bidder. The auction was quick: I was the only bidder, or the only fool, and I “won”, and what a prize it turned out to be!
The lithographical portrait of Dumont d’Urville was signed by Dumont d’Urville himself, whereas most lithographic portraits of him in other collections are printed with his name, but not signed. It appears this particular copy was originally owned by Jean René Constant Quoy, the French naval surgeon and zoologist who served on the Astrolabe under the command of Dumont d’Urville. Quoy was subsequently the sub-editor and author of the Zoology part of the publication. At the beginning of Volume 1, he has hand written details on his own two voyages around the world and on his career as a military surgeon wherein he complains that he was discriminated against by prejudices regarding his formal academic training — being a surgeon at a time when it was more glamorous to be trained as a medical doctor. A fortunate surprise indeed!
Hopefully this will have whetted the appetite of some of you to join me on the Tour of the galleries of South West France prior to the 2020 Parcours – details herein. Looking forward to seeing you in Toulouse on September 4th, 2020.