An interesting eighteenth-century Dutch map of the Old World, Africa, Asia and Australasia. Interestingly, it depicts the Australian continent connected to the landmass of New Guinea - an archaism given that Abel Tasman proved the two lands distinct and separate in 1643. A large river flowing from the deep interior of the continent into the Gulf of Carpenteria is named 'Abel Tasman's R.' Also discovered and named by Tasman, Van Diemen's land (being present-day Tasmania) is also notably absent and the entire south-eastern mass of the continent is approximated in dotted lines stretching to the extreme south. As was conventional of the era, present-day Western Australia is labeled New Holland, and the landfalls of principal eighteenth-century Dutch voyagers are noted.
The Amsterdam-based publisher Isaak Tirion (1705-1769) is known to have produced books, charts and maps for the Dutch mercantile elite. Tirion was primarily a cartographic publisher, who issued several lavish atlases as well as smaller geographical guides (literally 'Hand-Atlas'), from which this attractive map is derived. During his prolific career, Tirion was associated with the Dutch East India Company; in 1757 Willem Udemans, a shipwright and director of the VOC shipyard at Middelburg commissioned Tirion to print a treatise on naval architecture. He also published a Dutch language edition of Commodore Anson's circumnavigation in 1749, a work remarkable for the quality of its maps and charts.
Full title: Nieuwe Kaart Van het Oostelykste Deel der Weereld, dienende tot Aanwyzing van de Scheepstogten der Nederlanderen Naar Oostindie Volgens de laatste Ontdekkingen.