Italy
18th century
Hand-colored copper plate engraving
16 × 20 in. including mat (40.6 × 50.8 cm); image: 9 × 13½ in. (22.9 × 34.3 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, Stockholm
This 18th-century Italian hand-colored copper plate engraving depicts Tahitian dancers, a subject that appeared frequently in European visual material connected to Polynesia. Dance scenes were used to describe ceremony, social life, dress, and movement for audiences who encountered Tahiti through printed travel literature. The image belongs to the wider body of Pacific prints that shaped European views of the Society Islands.
The engraving uses fine linear work to define the figures and setting, with hand coloring adding emphasis to costume and composition. Its horizontal format gives the scene room to present multiple figures in relation to one another. As a historical print, it records an 18th-century European representation of Tahitian performance and the print culture through which Polynesian subjects circulated.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
Italy
18th century
Hand-colored copper plate engraving
16 × 20 in. including mat (40.6 × 50.8 cm); image: 9 × 13½ in. (22.9 × 34.3 cm)
Provenance: Private collection, Stockholm
This 18th-century Italian hand-colored copper plate engraving depicts Tahitian dancers, a subject that appeared frequently in European visual material connected to Polynesia. Dance scenes were used to describe ceremony, social life, dress, and movement for audiences who encountered Tahiti through printed travel literature. The image belongs to the wider body of Pacific prints that shaped European views of the Society Islands.
The engraving uses fine linear work to define the figures and setting, with hand coloring adding emphasis to costume and composition. Its horizontal format gives the scene room to present multiple figures in relation to one another. As a historical print, it records an 18th-century European representation of Tahitian performance and the print culture through which Polynesian subjects circulated.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
