Important and rare view of Sydney Cove from Dawes Point looking eastward. This is one of the earliest depictions of the new English settlement of Sydney Town. This detailed view depicts Sydney from the 1802 camp of Baudin's expedition at Bennelong Point. Engraved in 1807 after the original work by expedition artist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, the view shows the state of the colony 20 years after the arrival of Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet in Sydney Cove.

Full Title: Nouvelle-Hollande, Nelle. Galles du Sud : vue d'une partie de la ville de Sydney, capitale des colonies anglaises aux terres australes, et de l'entrée du Port Jackson dans lequel cette ville est située 

The engraving is based on one of several drawings made in Sydney in 1802 by Nicolas-Martin Petit (1777–1804), and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, both 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 VIEW DOCUMENTARY