Original lithograph from Dumont d'Urville's "Voyage au Pole Sud", showing a beautiful New Guinea harbor scene, with the two ships anchored and a survey party at work.

Original lithograph from Dumont d'Urville's "Voyage au Pole Sud", showing a beautiful New Guinea harbor scene, with the two ships anchored and a survey party at work.

Dumont d'Urville's instruction from King Louis-Philippe was to explore the South Pole. Up to this time France had taken no part in Antarctic discovery which had been dominated by the English. Dumont d'Urville left Toulon on September 7, 1837 with two ships, the "Astrolabe" and the "Zelee", on a voyage that was to become dogged by mishap and illness. Two artists accompanied D'Urville, Ernest Auguste Goupil and Louis le Breton. Goupil died in Hobart whilst the expedition was there in April 1840.