Australia

Dateca. 1860

Mediumengraving on paper

Dimensionsengraving: 10 3/4 × 14 3/4 in. (27.3 × 37.5 cm)
matte: 20 x 24 in.

ClassificationsDocumentary Artifact

Credit LineAlbuquerque Museum, gift of the Albuquerque Museum Foundation from the Lucia v. B. Batten Estate

Object numberPC2020.51.96

DescriptionThis color map of Australia contains an intricate decorative border of vines, flowers, fruits, and bells. Inside the landmass, there are keys of city names written in columns. At the center top, inside a small frame, it says, "AUSTRALIA." The country is split into four sections colored yellow, pink, green, and orange. There are five illustrations on the map. In the upper left corner is an illustration of two people with the words: "NATIVES OF THE TRIBE OF BOGAN" below it. In the lower-left corner, there is an illustration that says "SYDNEY" below it. To the right of this illustration is one of two kangaroos. Below it it says, "KANGAROOS." Along the upper right edge of the page, there are various birds, and below this it says, "AUSTRALIAN PARROTS/AND/COCKATOO." In the lower right corner is an illustration of two adults and one baby. Below this, it says, "NATIVES OF AUSTRALIA FELIX." In the lower-left corner, outside and just below the frame surrounding the map, it says, "The Illustrations by J. Marchadi & Engraved by J. H. Allen." At the bottom center, below the frame, it says, "JOHN TALLIS & COMPANY, LONDON & NEW YORK." In the lower right corner, outside the frame, it says, "The Map Drawn & Engraved by J. Rapkin."

On View

Not on view

Collections

The World As They Knew It: Maps and Marginalia from Europe and North America

Text Entries

Label Text

John Rapkin

1815–1876 Great Britain

Australia

ca. 1860

engraving on paper

gift of the Albuquerque Museum Foundation from the Lucia v.B. Batten Estate

PC2020.51.96

Maps often reveal as much about the time and culture of their maker as they do about a place. John Rapkin was a British cartographer and engraver who made maps of faraway places. In the 1860s, at the height of the Australian gold rushes, many British and Irish settlers had made their homes there, but the colonization of Australia was still very much ongoing. The illustrations on this map may have been included as a way to entice more people to the wild and unusual land of the south, where they could see giant, jumping mammals roaming the land.

Recent History Acquisitions, April 3, 2021

Label Text

There was a reason for the British cartographic focus on Australia as colonization of the island had already begun. Whether as a penal colony to house convicts or for imperial purposes to expand the empire, British forces had established settlements in Australia and the surrounding islands enforcing their rule on both Indigenous and migrating communities by the 1800s.

British maps of Australia perpetuated stereotypes of the nature and Indigenous people living there, a trend that began centuries before of showing the mapmaker’s lands as flourishing and foreign lands as exotic, ‘other’ spaces.