The de-luxe thick paper issue of the separate publication of this series of engraved views made on the Flinders voyage.

The de-luxe thick paper issue of the separate publication of this series of engraved views made on the Flinders voyage.

William Westall (1781-1850) was recommended by Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy, for appointment as landscape artist to Matthew Flinders's voyage in the Investigator. Their circumnavigation of Australia from 1801 to 1803 was a momentous undertaking and the views prepared on the voyage constitute in many instances the earliest European depictions of parts of the Australian coastline.

Westall's sketches from the voyage were used in the preparation of these engravings of Kangaroo Island, Malay Road, Wreck-Reef Bank, Murray's Islands, King George's Sound, Port Jackson, Port Bowen, Gulf of Carpentaria and Port Lincoln. Westall completed about 140 sketches and water colours during the voyage. In 1811 Flinders, in conference with Sir Joseph Banks and the artist, choose just nine of them to be made into oil paintings for the Admiralty, and to be engraved as illustrations. The magnificent paintings can today be seen at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.

The fine engravings were used in Flinders's official account and to illustrate this rare separately issued work.