Poisson plat énorme vu en mer le 23 février 1819 près de l'île de Amirauté : [Huge flat fish seen at sea on the 23rd of February 1819 near Admiralty Island] / by Rose de Freycinet

SSV/145

fonds

23 February 1819

Graphic Materials, Drawings

1006343

1 drawing - pencil, ink - 21.9 x 14.8 cm

Rose de Freycinet (1794-1832) was born in Saint-Julien-du-Sault, outside Paris, to a cultured bourgeois family. She was well-educated and at 19 married the aristocratic naval officer Louis de Freycinet, a veteran of the Baudin expedition which surveyed large parts of the Australian coastline between 1801 and 1803.

In 1817 Louis de Freycinet was given command of a Pacific scientific and exploring expedition, as captain of the Uranie. Rose disguised herself as a cabin boy and was smuggled on board her husband’s ship as an unauthorised member of his 1817 expedition, becoming one of the first women to circumnavigate the globe.

The expedition sailed via the Cape of Good Hope to Shark Bay, in Western Australia, before sailing to Timor, Indonesia, the Caroline Islands, and Guam. The expedition then sailed across to Hawaii, and down to Sydney where they stayed for five weeks in November/December 1819.

An entry from Rose’s journal dated 14 March 1819 describes a sighting of ‘a school of fish shaped like rays but of an enormous size, with big horns on their heads. By chance, I was the one who had a sufficiently good look at them to be able to make a sketch.’

Reference: Library Correspondence File

1 ink sketch of a flat fish, surrounded by pencil and pen notes describing the fish and recording the time of sighting. Notes are recorded in French.

Out of copyright:
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Translated title : Huge flat fish seen at sea on the 23rd of February 1819 near Admirality Island

Notes within the outline and underneath the sketch state ‘at least 8 feet in length’ and ‘the fish had a fin on its back’. This is likely to be in Rose’s hand.

Another note in a different hand (possibly that of Louis) describes the creature as an ‘enormous flat fish’, dates the sketch 23 February 1819, and gives the location as near the Admiralty Islands.

To the left of the drawing, a different hand has written ‘is this not a Céphaloptère Giorna [Giorna Ray]?’ The vendor suggests this could be the hand of the naturalist Gaimard. Further research would be required to determine if the sketch is indeed a Giorna Ray or another species.

Reference: Library Correspondence File