Voyage de l’Astrolabe et de la Zélée — Jonques chinoises

Louis Le Breton was a French naval surgeon, draughtsman, and marine artist who sailed with Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville’s expedition to the South Pole and Oceania aboard L’Astrolabe and La Zélée between 1837 and 1840. After the death of the expedition’s official artist, Ernest Goupil, Le Breton became one of the principal artists of the voyage. This lithographic view of Chinese junks belongs to the visual record associated with Dumont d’Urville’s Voyage au pôle Sud et dans l’Océanie sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zélée, published in Paris by Gide between 1841 and 1855

The print shows large Chinese junks at anchor, their high sterns, decorated hulls, mat sails, rigging, flags, and deck activity carefully observed. European vessels appear in the background, placing the scene within the mixed maritime world of Asian coastal waters in the nineteenth century. Rather than presenting a coastal town or harbour panorama, the image focuses on ship form, maritime encounter, and the visual contrast between Chinese and European vessels.