19/8/2015 Paris

19/8/2015 Paris

Up early and I went through my information on the second artist on Baudin’s voyage:

·         Nicolas-Martin Petit

·         Charles-Alexandre Lesueur

Nicolas-Martin Petit and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur both signed on as crew members of the Le Geographe because they were keen to travel to the undiscovered lands of New Holland. Without these two talented young men the expedition’s value would have been greatly lessened, as all three of the official artists resigned from the expedition before it even reached the southern continent. With the English artists, Petit and Lesueur were the first Europeans to portray the land, people, animals, plants and marine life of South Australia.

Nicolas-Martin Petit

Nicolas-Martin Petit was born in Paris in 1777. His family was artistic, and he also studied art. In 1800 he joined Baudin’s expedition and teamed up with the scientist Francois Peron and artist Lesueur to record the Aborigines and fauna of Terres Australes.
Petit’s sensitive paintings of the indigenous people of Van Diemen’s Land, Port Jackson and Western Australia were highly praised by scientists in France on his return to his homeland. His portraits of aboriginal communities are particularly valuable for their accuracy of representation rather than stylised images.
Tragically, Petit died in 1804 in an accident in the streets of Paris, shortly before his marriage was to take place.

Internet sites

Charles-Alexandre Lesueur
Natural History Museum, Le Havre: Lesueur Collection: summarised biographies
Natural History: Voyage of a painter [Charles-Alexander Lesueur]
PictureAustralia

Further sources

Baudin in Australian waters: the artwork of the French voyage of discovery to the southern lands 1800-1804 / edited by Jacqueline Bonnemains, Elliott Forsyth and Bernard Smith. Melbourne: Oxford University Press in association with the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1988
The Encounter 1802: art of the Flinders and Baudin voyages / [compiled by] Sarah Thomas Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2002
Lesueur, Charles Alexandre. Les velins de Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (Museum d’Histoire Naturelle du Havre): exposition du 4 mai au 2 juin 1996. Le Havre, France: The Museum, 1996
Petit, Nicolas-Martin. Oeuvres de Nicolas-Martin Petit, artiste du voyage aux Terres Australes (1800-1804): exposition du 1er juin au 31 décembre 1997. Le Havre: Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Havre, Collection Lesueur, 1997
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch vol. 66, 1964-65. Mander-Jones, Phyllis. ‘The artists who sailed with Baudin and Flinders.’
Terre Napoléon, Australia through French eyes, 1800-1804, Susan Hunt, Paul Carter, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales & Horden House, Museum of Sydney, 27 February – 30 May 1999, Sydney, 1999.
Le voyage aux Terres Australes 1800-1804, Ville de Honfleur, Musée Eugène Boudin, 4 Mai-24 Juin, 1996 /conçu par Anne-Marie Bergeret.Honfleur: Musée Eugène Boudin, 1996

I will try to find any more documentation in the MNHM for Petit artworks. The Le Havre Museum had very little that was directly attributed to him in their collection (or so I was told). The curator considered that most had been (incorrectly) attributed to Lesueur over time.  

Again I started at the MNHM at 2.00 pm but this time I was allowed to bring my Camera. The manuscripts I worked on yesterday were there and I took about 98 photos in all as I worked my way back through them. A selection of "tropical fish" with Lesueur's nomenclature and any geographical notes that there was on the drawings. There are at least two and sometimes three layers of annotation in pencil, which look like Lesueur's hand. The latest ones are in English, the rest are archaic French.
Lesueur appears to have reworked the drawings a number of times over the years.

My literature/archive search for Nicolas-Martin Petit turned up very little (in comparison to the Leseuer collection). I have ordered two books for tomorrow, and will see where that takes me. 

I finished just before 6.00 pm and made my way by crowded bus back to the Cite and dinner.