Hawaiian Islands / Sandwich Islands
1784, first edition atlas from Captain Cook's Third Voyage
Copper plate engraving by John Webber
Archival mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Provenance: Randy Nagatani, Honolulu, HI; Lahaina Printsellers, Maui, HI
This copper plate engraving by John Webber illustrates objects from the Sandwich Islands, from the first edition atlas of Captain Cook's third and final voyage, published in 1784. Object plates of this kind served a specific function within the voyage publications: where figure studies and landscape views addressed European curiosity about appearance and environment, material culture plates provided a documentary record of tools, ornaments, and implements that could be studied, compared, and cross-referenced with the text. Webber's renderings of Hawaiian objects were produced from direct observation during the expedition and remain primary visual sources for the material culture of late eighteenth-century Hawai'i.
The composition presents the articles in an ordered documentary format, with emphasis on form and detail over narrative or setting. Plates of objects were consulted by naturalists, collectors, and artists long after the voyage publications appeared, and this example belongs to the first edition in which Webber's work received its definitive printed form. The Randy Nagatani and Lahaina Printsellers provenance adds a Hawaiian collecting history to a plate of ongoing scholarly and collecting relevance.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Hawaiian Islands / Sandwich Islands
1784, first edition atlas from Captain Cook's Third Voyage
Copper plate engraving by John Webber
Archival mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Provenance: Randy Nagatani, Honolulu, HI; Lahaina Printsellers, Maui, HI
This copper plate engraving by John Webber illustrates objects from the Sandwich Islands, from the first edition atlas of Captain Cook's third and final voyage, published in 1784. Object plates of this kind served a specific function within the voyage publications: where figure studies and landscape views addressed European curiosity about appearance and environment, material culture plates provided a documentary record of tools, ornaments, and implements that could be studied, compared, and cross-referenced with the text. Webber's renderings of Hawaiian objects were produced from direct observation during the expedition and remain primary visual sources for the material culture of late eighteenth-century Hawai'i.
The composition presents the articles in an ordered documentary format, with emphasis on form and detail over narrative or setting. Plates of objects were consulted by naturalists, collectors, and artists long after the voyage publications appeared, and this example belongs to the first edition in which Webber's work received its definitive printed form. The Randy Nagatani and Lahaina Printsellers provenance adds a Hawaiian collecting history to a plate of ongoing scholarly and collecting relevance.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
