Rare print showing Sea elephants, or elephant seals (Phoca proboscidea. N.), King Island, Bass Strait, Australia.
Sea Elephant Bay is situated on the east coast of King Island, on its shores lies Naracoopa, a small and unique village that emphasises peace and tranquillity. At an earlier time the settlement was known as Taroona. Naracoopa is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘good’. In Queensland’s Currumbin Valley in the Gold Coast hinterland there is a property also named Naracoopa, I believe they claim the name to mean ‘a peaceful place’ – either way, peaceful or good, can’t go wrong really.
The river (Sea Elephant River) and the bay (Sea Elephant Bay)at (Naracoopa), even the island in the middle of the bay was initially named Sea Elephant Island but later renamed to Councilor Island, were all named by Baudins Expedition, they reported hundreds of Sea Elephants, some apparently up to 30-feet long. Back then the seal population was mostly wiped out by King Island’s first white settlers and their aboriginal wives, they were the island’s only occupiers. Sea Elephant Bay was often frequented by their sealing vessels. By 1813 Seals and Sea Elephants were completely wiped out.
Full title: Nouvelle Hollande, Ile King, l' Elephant Marin on Phoque a Trompe, Vue de la Baie des Elephants.
The engraving is based on drawings made by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, artist on Nicolas Baudin’s expedition. Having participated in two scientific expeditions during the 1790s, Baudin was commissioned by the French government in 1800 to survey the Australian coast. The voyage, endorsed by Napoleon, was also tasked with studying natural history and making detailed scientific observations of Indigenous people. Consequently, Baudin’s vessels, Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste, were lavishly equipped, with twenty-two scientists among the expedition’s company. Petit and another artist, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, embarked as gunner’s mates, but were elevated to official artist roles when the men initially appointed to those posts quit six months into the expedition. Lesueur focussed on the recording of landscape and species, while the depiction of the people fell largely to Petit, a Paris-born draughtsman who’d had some training in the studio of Jacques-Louis David. After surveying the western and southern coats of the continent throughout the latter half of 1801, in early 1802 Baudin’s ships called at the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, Bruny Island and Maria Island in Tasmania, where Petit made several portraits which have subsequently come to be considered important records of Indigenous life in the period prior to permanent European colonisation. From June to November 1802, the expedition was delayed in Sydney while the two vessels were repaired, providing the opportunity for Petit to complete portraits of people of the Cadigal, Dharawal, Gweagal, Kurringai and Darug language groups of the Sydney region.
An interesting documentary about Baudin’s expedition can be found on youtube in the following link
