Exhibition labels & didactics - National Gallery of Victoria

THE SEARCH FOR LA PÉROUSE
Three years after the last communication that France received from
the much-feted Pacific expedition of the Comte de La Pérouse,
authorised by Louis XVI in 1785, concern in Paris had grown
to the point of action. Since La Pérouse had left Botany Bay in
March 1788 (which he had visited on the King’s specific orders
to observe the beginning of British colonisation in Australia),
his whereabouts had been a constant mystery and a thorn in the
side of French naval and scientific pride. Accordingly, in February
1791 the National Assembly authorised a new expedition to the
Pacific, to search for any trace of La Pérouse and his crew.
Joseph-Antoine Bruny d’Entrecasteaux was commissioned to
lead this expedition, which visited Australia in 1792. Louis XVI,
obsessed with the disappearance of La Pérouse, seems to have
had a hand in drafting d’Entrecasteaux’s orders. Charged also with
undertaking a new scientific study of Australia, d’Entrecasteaux
carried in his ships scientists and botanists, cartographers and
hydrographers, gardeners and artists. While his expedition failed to
find any trace of La Pérouse (who unbeknown to d’Entrecasteaux
had perished by shipwreck near the Solomon Islands), and
d’Entrecasteaux himself died during the return voyage, nonetheless
it made enormous contributions to world knowledge of Australia’s
geography, flora and fauna.
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