The Astrolabe Molluscs

Hand-coloured illustrations of invertebrate marine animals from the phylum Mollusca, collected during a French expeditionary voyage in the 1820s.

"The phylum Mollusca contains some of the most familiar invertebrates, including snails, slugs, clams, mussels, and octopuses."^

The images below have been cropped back to the copper-plate engraving margins and the backgrounds have been extensively cleaned of spots and stains. A few images have been colour boosted. The sampling below constitutes maybe one fifth of the total number of illustrated atlas plates.

• Sèche vermiculée*
• Séche mamelonneé* 
• *Cap de bonne-espérance

• Sépioteuthe austral
• Sépioteuthe de maurice

• Sepioteuthe de dorei
• Sepioteuthe lunulé

• Sèche deux lignes
• Sèche à longs bras

• Calmar de Vanikoro
• Sèche australe (Banc des Anguilles)
• Sépiole linéolée (Nouv-Hollande)
• Onychoteuthe armé (Célèbes)

• Poulpe lunulé
• Poulpe cordiforme
• Poulpe de Western
• Poulpe membraneux

• Hélice alfour
• Hélice mammillaire
• Hélice granulée
• Hélice papoua

• Doris Tuberculeuse
• Doris Tachetée. Cuv.
• Doris à bords noirs. Cuv.
• Doris Limacine
• Doris Carénée

• Aplysie de Hasselt, Variété. (Ile de France)
• Aplysie de rumph, variéte. (Tonga-Tabou)
• Aplysie de Tonga. (Tonga-Tabou)

• Buccin, Lime
• Buccin, Raifort
• Struthiolaire, Crénulée
• Éburne, canaliculée
• Buccin, Lisse
• Buccin, Agathe

• Tonne perdrix
• Son anatomie
• Tonne pelure d'oigno
• Tonne cassidiforme
• Son anatomie

• Porcelaine tigre. (Tonga-Tabou)
• Porcelaine anguleuse. (Tonga-Tabou)
• Porcelaine oviforme. (Nouv-Guinée)
• Porcelaine à verrues. (Tonga-Tabou)
• Porcelaine arlequine. (Tonga-Tabou)
• Porcelaine rongée. (Tonga-Tabou)
• Porcelaine téte-de-serpent. (Ile-de-France)

• Animal de porcelaine tigre (femelle)
• Anatomie de la mème (mâle)
• Aneillaire à sillons blancee (femelle)
• Aneillaire australe (mâle)
• Strombe lambis (femelle)
• Agathine mauritienne

• Strombe aile-deopapillion, femelle
• Strombe grenouille, mâle
• Strombe lambis, mâle
• Variété Strombe lambis
• Strombe bossu

• Phasianelle, Bulimoïde
• Phasianelle, Ventrue
• Turbo Marbré

• Oscabrion de Maurice
• Oscabrion à côtes étroites
• Oscabrion Zélandais
• Oscabrion de Garnot. (Brainu)
• Oscabrion violet
• Oscabrion violet. variété
• Oscabrion fascié
• Oscabrion montieculaire
• le méme variété
• Oscabrion oculé

• Oscabrion aiguillonne
• Oscabrion variété
• Oscabrion glauque
• Oscabrion birameux
• Oscabrion peau de serpent
• Oscabrion vert
• Oscabrion lamelleux
• Oscabrion marron
• Oscabrion tulipe

• Tridacne faitiére
• Tridacne safranée
• La méme vue par dessous
• Tridacne gigantésque

• Ascidie marron d'inde
• Ascidie australe
• son anatomie
• Ascidie épineuse
• Polycline cylindrique
• Botrylle en grappe
• Distome violet
• Distome élégant
• Eucéle rose
• Aplide cérébriforme
• Aplide pédonculé

• [Zoophytes]
• Holothurie ananas
• Détails anatomiques
• Son poisson parasite. (du genre Fierasfer.)
• Holothurie flammée

• [Zoophytes]
• Holothurie épineuse N. avec son anatomie
• Holothurie orangée
• Fistulaire piquetée
• Fistulaire de Dorey

• [Zoophytes]
• Actinie, Magnifique
• Actinie, Azur
• Actinie. Verdâtre
• Actinie à Globules

• [Zoophytes]
• Actinie, Alcyonoïde
• Actinie, Arborescente
• Actinie, Rouge et blanche
• Actinie, Clou

• [Zoophytes]
• Fongie Actinie. (Nouvelle-Irlande)
• Fongie à gros tubrcules. (Vanikoro)
• Tubinolie rouge. (Nouv-Zélande)

• [Zoophytes]
• Lobophyllie anguleuse var. (N.-Irlande)
• Caryophyllie fasciculée. (Vanikoro)
• Lobophyllie orangée. (Nouv.-Hollande)
• Dendrophyllie rougeâtre. (Nouv.-Zélande)

• [Zoophytes]
• Alcyon fléxible
• Alcyon tuberculeux
• Alcyon jaune
• Alcyon rameux

• [Vers apodes -- ? = legless]
• Borlasie à cinq lignes
• Borlasie striée
• Borlasie à bandelette | sa variété
• Borlasie verte
• Borlasie tricuspide
• Borlasie de la Nouv.-Zélande
• Borlasie à quatre points

Firstly, to quote myself:

"Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842) had already established a name for himself when, as part of a French naval expedition to Greece in 1820, he recognized the true value of a recently unearthed statue. His advocacy resulted in the Louvre purchasing the Venus de Milo. 

As a lieutenant aboard the Coquille under Louis Duperrey, d'Urville first sailed around the world in 1822 and he surveyed the Falklands, Tahiti, New Zealand, New Holland and other Pacific islands. After a promotion he commanded L'Astrolabe when it sailed in 1826 on a 3 year voyage whose original mission was to investigate the fate of the La Pérouse expedition (the original Astrolabe was among the lost ships).

[Wiki]: "The new Astrolabe skirted the coast of southern Australia, carried out new relief maps of the South Island of New Zealand, reached the archipelagos of Tonga and Fiji, executed the first relief maps of the Loyalty Islands (part of French New Caledonia) and explored the coasts of New Guinea. [d'Urville] identified the site of La Pérouse’s shipwreck in Vanikoro (one of the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the archipelago of the Solomon Islands) and collected numerous remains of his boats. The voyage continued with the mapping of part of the Caroline Islands and the Moluccas. The Astrolabe returned to Marseille on 25 March, 1829, with an impressive load of hydrographical papers and collections of zoological, botanical and mineralogical reports, which were destined to strongly influence the scientific analysis of those regions. Following this expedition, he invented the terms Malaisia, Micronesia and Melanesia, distinguishing these Pacific cultures and island groups from Polynesia."

Te Ara: "On the completion of this voyage Dumont d'Urville expressed some regret that the efforts of his officers and men were not sufficiently recognised. However, on 8 August 1829 Charles X signed an act promoting Dumont d'Urville to the rank of post captain and on 17 August l'Académie Royale des Sciences de l'Institut received with warm approval his official report of the expedition. Dumont d'Urville was commanded by the King to publish an account of the voyage of the Astrolabe; comprising twelve volumes and five albums, it was completed by May 1835."

• One of the atlases from: 'Voyage de Découvertes de l'Astrolab Exécuté par Ordre du Roi, Pendant les Années 1826-1827-1828-1829, Sous le Commandement de M. J. Dumont d'Urville, Capitaine de Vaisseau' {1833} by MJD d'Urville & Achille Richard was uploaded by the Botanicus Digital Library in 2012. (I don't usually revisit works I've posted about previously, but my original post on L'Astrolabe is 7 years old and this atlas upload is a singularly beautiful copy, available in a variety of formats in high resolution, and beyond anything else I've seen online from the d'Urville series in terms of quality.)
• Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville biographies: Dictionary of NZ Biography (via Te Ara) by Margaret JA Simpson AND 1966 bio from NZ Encyclopedia (via Te Ara) – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. [Te Ara homepage]
• Biography from South-Pole.
• Museum of Western Australia exhibition site: Journeys of Enlightenment.
• Legacy site (incl. background and plates) from the Marine Biological Laboratory (Massachusetts).
• All (or nearly all?) of the plates from the Voyage of L'Astrolabe series (and most likely other books by/on d'Urville) can be seen via NYPL - I copied all the image captions above from here.
• Other plates : Linda Hall Library | U Edinburgh.
• The Wikipedia article on Mollusca is a pretty good introduction and jump off point.
• Just by the by, I'm reminded that there aren't a lot of easily findable historical voyage maps (of reasonable quality) on the internet as far as I'm aware. Pity, that.
• Previously: The Voyage of La Perouse.
• Elsewhere: Twitter | Delicious | Pinboard.