Cook & Omai: The Cult of the South Seas

15 February - 27 May 2001 Exhibition Gallery

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Introduction
The truest picture of an arcadia
A Noble Savage in London
The deaths of Cook and Omai
Epilogue

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Introduction

In 1774, the first Polynesian to visit London travelled to England with the crew of Captain Cook's second Pacific voyage and became an overnight sensation. Seen as a living example of the 'Noble Savage', Omai as he was known, was discussed by scientists and philosophers, celebrated in all the best circles and written about in everything from poetry to pornography. He proved a lightning rod for European anxieties regarding imperialism, civilisation and the true nature of mankind. The artistic and literary legacy of Omai's encounter with Europe provides a fascinating insight into European culture in a moment of transition, when old certainties were collapsing and new ones were yet to form. Cook & Omai: The Cult of the South Seas has been developed by the National Library of Australia in association with the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University. The exhibition draws extensively on the Library's magnificent Rex Nan Kivell Collection and includes significant loans from the Australian Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery and the State Library of New South Wales.

Home | Introduction | The truest picture of an arcadia | A Noble Savage in London | The deaths of Cook and Omai | Epilogue


The truest picture of an arcadia (of which we were going to be kings)

In 1766 the British Admiralty took up the search for the Southern Continent officially, sending out Captain Samuel Wallis in the Dolphin, accompanied by Philip Carteret in the unseaworthy Swallow. On entering the Pacific, bad weather separated the two ships. Wallis’ secret instructions were: ‘to discover and obtain a complete knowledge of the Land or Islands supposed to be situated in the Southern Hemisphere’.

On 18 June 1767 the sailors saw a mountain covered with cloud and supposing it to be the Southern Continent, discovered instead the island of Tahiti. The most extensive British account of the discovery is provided by George Robinson, master of the Dolphin, who wrote:

‘…The country hade the most Beautiful appearance its posabel to Imagin, from the shore side one two and three miles Back there is a fine Leavel country that appears to be all laid out in plantations, and the regular built Houses seems to be without number, all allong the Coast, they appeared lyke long Farmers Barns and seemd to be all very neatly thatched, with Great Numbers of Coca Nut Trees and several oyr trees that we could not know the name of all allong the shore – the Interior part of the country is very Mountainous but there is beautiful valeys between the Mountains – from the foot of the Mountains half way up the Country appears to be all fine pasture land, except a few places which seemd to be plowed or dug up for planting or sowing some sort of seed – from that to the very topes of the Mountains is all full of tall trees but what sort they are I know not but the whole was Green. This appears to be the most populoss country I ever saw, the whole shore side was lined with men, women and children all the way that we Saild allong.’

Samuel Wallis (1728–1795)
Otaheite [i.e. Tahiti] or King Georges Island c.1767
pen and wash drawing; 28.7 x 44 cm

Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK31/3
Pictorial Collection T1915

On 24 June 1767 as the Dolphin warped into Matavai Bay, the Tahitians came out in their canoes and pelted the vessel with stones. Wallis replied with cannons. The next day an armed party went ashore to plant the British pendant and take formal possession of the island, naming it King George the Third’s Island. Two days later two fleets of canoes converged on the Dolphin, while armed warriors made for the watering party on shore. Wallis ordered the crew to fire on the approaching canoes, which immediately withdrew, and then the guns were turned on shore. The warriors there fled to a hill overlooking the bay, which was already crowded with women and children. The Dolphin fired four devastating shots at the hill. Omai would later claim to have been one of the many casualties. That afternoon, after the ship’s carpenters had destroyed all the canoes they could find, the Tahitians sued for peace, bringing gifts of food and cloth and giving access to their young women. The Dolphin’s sick went ashore to recuperate, and the trading began.

Unknown artist
The Natives of Otaheite Attacking Captn. Wallis the First Discoverer of That Island c.1767
watercolour; 33 x 41 cm

Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK147
Pictorial Collection T2786

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville first sighted Tahiti on 2 April 1768, less than ten months after the island was claimed for the British crown by Samuel Wallis. Unaware of the Dolphin’s visit, Bougainville drew up an Act of Possession and named the island Nouvelle Cythère, after the Peloponnesian island of Kithira near which Aphrodite was said to have risen from the sea. Bougainville wrote of his brief visit ‘Several times I went on inland walks. I felt as though I had been transported to the Garden of Eden … Everywhere reigned hospitality, peace, joy, and every appearance of happiness.’ With his two ships in a poor anchorage Bougainville prepared to leave Tahiti on 16 April. With him he carried Aoutourou (Ahu-Toru) who would become the first Tahitian to visit Europe, and whose information about Tahitian society would temper Bougainville’s enthusiastic account of the island. In his introduction to the published account of his voyage Bougainville sought to pre-empt the disbelief of his readers:

I am a voyager and a seaman; that is a liar and a stupid fellow, in the eyes of that class of indolent haughty writers, who in their closets reason in infinitum on the world and its inhabitants, and with an air of superiority, confine nature within the limits of their own invention … and only write and reason upon the observations which they have borrowed from those same travellers in whom they deny the faculty of seeing and thinking.

Unknown artist
Tahitians Presenting Fruits to Bougainville Attended by His Officers 1768?
pencil and watercolour; 9.2 x 6.9 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK5066
Pictorial Collection T2996

Cook first sighted New Zealand on 8 October 1769, and in the following days as the Endeavour sailed along the coast a number of Maori canoes approached to challenge or barter. A week later Sydney Parkinson described the approach of nine canoes:

in which were one hundred and sixty of the natives: they behaved in a very irresolute manner, sometimes seeming as if they would attack us; then taking fright (Cook had fired a four pound load of grape shot a little wide of one canoe on the previous day), and retreating a little … shaking their lances and bone bludgeons at us, talking very loud and blustering, lolling out their tongues and making other signs of defiance.

The drawing Parkinson made of this encounter, New Zealand War Canoe Bidding Defiance to the Ship, shows a cloaked man holding a battle-axe of very similar appearance to this tewhatewha which is one of three items in the Library’s possession thought to have been collected by Banks in New Zealand.

Unknown maker
[Tewhatewha (a Maori battle-axe) with carved, shell-inlaid handle] 176-?
bone and shell; 102.2 cm long
Pictorial Collection A40003604

While Joseph Banks used classical similes to describe Tahiti in his journal, none of the draughtsmen in his service—Buchan, Parkinson and Spöring—were trained to draw figures in the ‘correct’ proportions of classical sculpture. As a result, their drawings of the people and scenes Banks describes are at odds with the journal.

When John Hawkesworth engaged artists to design and engrave the illustrations for his account of Cook’s voyage, he chose Giovanni Battista Cipriani and Francesco Bartolozzi. Cipriani and his friend Bartolozzi, both originally from Florence, came to England in 1755 and became founding members of the Royal Academy when it was established in 1768. Inheritors of a long-standing academic tradition that made few concessions to the need for scientifically accurate records of expeditions, Cipriani’s Rococo Classicism was used to ‘improve’ the drawings of Parkinson et al in much the same way that Hawkesworth ‘improved’ Cook’s journal.

Francesco Bartolozzi (1727–1815)
after Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727–1785)
after Sydney Parkinson (1745?–1771)
[A View of the Inside of a House in the Island of Ulietea, with the Representation of a Dance to the Music of the Country]
London: 1773
engraving; plate mark 21.2 x 30.1 cm
Pictorial Collection S1691

Drawing strongly on the conventions of Istoria or history painting, Mortimer celebrates the achievements of Cook’s first Pacific voyage. Cook, at the centre of the composition, gestures towards the new discoveries he has made across the seas. On the left of the painting sits Joseph Banks, with Daniel Solander standing behind him. The figure at the right of the composition is John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich and First Lord of the Admiralty, under whose orders Cook had sailed.

Banks sits upon a grassy bank, a reference to both his name and his passion for botany and natural history. The Earl leans upon a symbol of the classical past—regarded as the origin and cornerstone of British culture—which serves to emphasise his authority and position in society, while Cook indicates the glorious future made possible by British scientific advancement.

John Hamilton Mortimer (1741–1779)
[Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Sandwich, and Two Others] 1771?
oil on canvas; 120 x 166 cm
Pictorial Collection R10630

When Joseph Banks abandoned his plan to accompany James Cook on his second voyage to the Pacific, the artists he intended to take with him—the well-known German artist Johann Zoffany and three topographical artists (James Miller, John Frederick Miller and John Cleveley)—were also withdrawn from the voyage. In their place, the Admiralty board appointed William Hodges, landscape painter.

Unlike the artists of the first voyage, Hodges was to be directly under Cook’s orders. Early in the voyage Hodges was occupied with coastal profiles and tutoring a number of the midshipmen in topographic drawing. As the voyage progressed he showed a growing interest in recording atmospheric phenomena. Painting through the windows of the great cabin on the Resolution, Hodges was practising a form of ‘plein airism’ that would not become fashionable until the nineteenth century, when it would herald a transformation in western art.

The tropical character of Tahiti and the Society Islands generally presented Hodges with an entirely new set of visual problems, and his response was to concentrate on the portrayal of atmosphere, light and colour, subordinating detail to general effect. Despite the spontaneity and immediacy of effect Hodges achieves in so many of his paintings, a number of them were executed back in England, presumably from sketches taken on the spot. This painting appears to be one of those sketches, as another version of the work was presented to the Admiralty by Hodges in 1776 in fulfilment of his commission. It is now held by the National Maritime Museum in Britain.

William Hodges (1744–1797)
View from Point Venus, Island of Otaheite c.1774
oil on canvas; 29.2 x 39.4 cm
Pictorial Collection R8849

William Hodges (1744–1797)
A Man of Tahiti with Long Hair August 1773?
chalk drawing; 54.7 x 37.5 cm
Pictorial Collection R756

Of the wonderful series of portraits of Tahitians produced by Hodges, this portrait of Tu—or Otoo as the British called him—is regarded as the best. Tu was the leading chieftain of the Pare region of Tahiti, which lay adjacent to Matavai Bay. His reputation as a ‘timorous prince’ had been earned during the visit of the Endeavour in 1769, when he had refused to meet with Cook. However, with the assistance of a succession of British ships, and via his own considerable ambition, he later succeeded in uniting the whole of the Society Islands under his own rule as Pomare I. The Pomare dynasty lasted for 70 years before the French annexed the Islands group, and was even able to maintain its social and ritual roles for another 40 years after that.

William Hodges (1744–1797)
Otoo, King of Otaheite [i.e. Tahiti] August? 1773
chalk drawing; 54 x 37.8 cm
Pictorial Collection R755

In this portrait Hodges has used details of the costume and ornaments of his sitter—not as items typical of a certain society, but rather as indicators of the particular rank and role in society of an individual. In his published account of his voyage in the Pacific, George Forster writes:

‘In the morning we were to the south of Cape Kidnappers, and advanced to the Black Cape. After breakfast three canoes set off from this part of the shore, where some level land appeared at the foot of the mountains. They soon came on board as we were not very far from the land, and in one of them was a chief, who came on deck without hesitation. He was a tall middle-aged man, clothed in two new and elegant dresses, made of the New Zealand flag or flax-plant. His hair was dressed in the highest fashion of the country, tied on the crown, oiled and stuck with white feathers. In each ear he wore a piece of albatross skin with its white down, and his face was punctured in spirals and curved lines. Mr Hodges drew his portrait …’

William Hodges (1744–1797)
Portrait of a Maori Chieftain October 1773
chalk drawing; 54.3 x 37.4 cm
Pictorial Collection R747

William Hodges (1744–1797)
[Portrait of Tynai-mai, Princess of Raiatea] c.1773
chalk drawing; 54.3 x 37.2 cm
Pictorial Collection R739

William Hodges (1744-1797)
Tongatabu or Amsterdam
watercolour; 42.5 x 59.9 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK143
Pictorial Collection T1924

William Woollett, engraver (1735–1785)
after William Hodges (1744–1797)
The Fleet of Otaheite Assembled at Oparee
London: Wm. Strahan & Thos. Cadell, 1 February 1777
engraving; plate mark 24.7 x 39.5 cm
Pictorial Collection S1715

Hodges’ ‘Landing’ paintings, unlike his other work relating to the voyage, were designed and painted according to the conventions of history painting then fashionable in England. These conventions drew upon attitudes, compositions and costumes borrowed from classical sculpture and the masters of Italian painting, although the innovation of including contemporary costume gained increasing acceptance through the works of Benjamin West.

Depicting the first European contact with Pacific Islanders, Hodges’ paintings, and the engravings made from them to illustrate Cook’s second voyage journal, contain all the drama—the tension, confrontation and danger—one would expect in the making of history. Cook, determined to take the public presentation of his second Pacific voyage into his own hands, rewrote his journal a number of times throughout the voyages, perfecting an account of which he would be the hero. Hodges, a great admirer of Cook and well aware of the historical importance of his discoveries, has created the illustrations to support Cook’s heroic role.

John Keyes Sherwin, engraver (1751–1790)
after William Hodges (1744–1797)
The Landing at Erramanga, One of the New Hebrides
London: Wm. Strahan & Thos. Cadell, 1 February 1777
engraving; plate mark 28.8 x 48.5 cm
Pictorial Collection S1719

John Keyes Sherwin, engraver (1751–1790)
after William Hodges (1744–1797)
The Landing at Tanna One of the New Hebrides
London: Wm. Strahan & Thos. Cadell, 1 February 1777
engraving; 23.5 x 47.3 cm
Pictorial Collection S1720

Home | Introduction | The truest picture of an arcadia | A Noble Savage in London | The deaths of Cook and Omai | Epilogue


A Noble Savage in London

Omai arrived at Portsmouth on 14 July 1774 as a crew-member on board HMS Adventure, captained by Tobias Furneaux. Taken immediately to meet Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, he was then placed in the care of Joseph Banks and Dr Solander, both of whom he claimed to remember from their visit to Tahiti five years earlier. Three days later, on 17 July, he was presented to King George III and Queen Charlotte at Kew. It was at this introduction that Omai would reveal the grace and ‘natural’ good manners that first astounded and then delighted his audience. Once approved by the highest in the land, Omai’s career as a ‘social lion’ was assured.

Unknown engraver
Omiah the Indian from Otaheite Presented to Their Majesties at Kew by Mr Banks & Dr Solander,
July 17, 1774

London: 1774?
engraving; 11.1 x 13.9 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK10666
Pictorial Collection U5390

John Raphael Smith, engraver (1752–1812)
after Benjamin West (1738–1820)
Mr Banks
London: S. Hooper, J.R. Smith, 15 April 1773
mezzotint; 62 x 38 cm
Pictorial Collection S7817

John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792) succeeded to the peerage at the age of eleven. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he undertook a tour of the Continent and on his return to England in 1739, took up his seat in the House of Lords. Sandwich began his long association with the Admiralty in December 1744, when he was appointed a lord commissioner. He was First Lord of the Admiralty from 1763 to 1765. During this time his role in the prosecution of John Wilkes—a former associate—for both seditious and obscene libel, earned him the nickname ‘Jemmy Twitcher’, after the character in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera who ‘peaches’ his friend and fellow villain, MacHeath.

In 1771 Sandwich was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and during the 11 years of his tenure the vast patronage of his office was used for bribery and political jobbery in the interests of his political party. The Parliamentary Report of 1783–4 revealed that while the dock-yards had been sinks of iniquity before Sandwich’s time, they were never so utterly bad as during the War of American Independence. However, Sandwich was also a great supporter of Cook’s Pacific exploration, and supplied Admiralty funds for the purchase and fit-out of the Resolution, Adventure and Discovery. Cook named the Sandwich Islands, discovered in 1778, in his honour.

At the height of his unpopularity, Sandwich’s mistress of 16 years, Martha Ray, was murdered by a clergyman who had wished to marry her. When it became public knowledge that Sandwich, then in his sixty-sixth year, had openly cohabited with Ray the outburst of indignation damaged his standing even further. In March 1782, with the fall of the British government under Lord North, he effectively retired from public life.

Valentine Green, engraver (1739–1813)
after Johann Zoffany (1733–1810)
John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, Viscount Hinchingbrook [sic], First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty
London: Valentine Green,
30 August 1774
mezzotint; plate mark 51.5 x 35.3 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK275
Pictorial Collection U7553

This pencil drawing is a study for a larger portrait painted by Reynolds in 1775 or 1776. The image is a rare example of Reynolds’ preliminary drawings, as the artist preferred to work in oils directly onto the canvas. There is an oil sketch of Omai in the Yale University Collection, but the finished oil portrait bears a much closer resemblance to the pencil drawing. It has been suggested that Reynolds may have done the oil sketch first and, dissatisfied with the results, turned to the pencil to achieve a better likeness.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
Omai of the Friendly Isles 1774?
pencil drawing; 26.5 x 20 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK9670
Pictorial Collection T2711

Joshua Reynolds was one of the most sought-after portraitists of his day and his clientele were the rich, the aristocratic and the famous. In 1776 he exhibited two full-length portraits at the Royal Academy exhibition. One portrait was of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, regarded by her contemporaries as an ‘Empress of fashion’. The other, of identical size, was a portrait of Omai attired in the ‘habit of his country’.

The portrait of Omai was later engraved by Johann Jacobé and widely circulated. While portraits of Omai were commissioned from other artists, it appears that the Reynolds portrait was not a commission, as it was still in the artist’s studio in 1796. On a number of occasions Reynolds had portrayed famous people so that an engraving could be produced to satisfy public curiosity, and it is possible that his portrait of Omai was undertaken for this reason also. Whatever the motive, the portrait is regarded as one of Reynolds’ finest.

Johann Jacobe, engraver (1733–1797)
after Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
Omai, a Native of the Island of Utietea [i.e. Ulietea]
London: John Boydell,
1 September 1780
mezzotint; plate mark 63 x 38.4 cm
U6876 NK4832

Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820)
Papers 1745-1820
Things intended for Omai
manuscript list: 22.5 x 18.5 cm
Manuscript Collection MS9/14

Samuel William Reynolds, engraver (1773–1835)
after Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)
Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.
London: Hodgson, Boys & Graves, 1834
mezzotint; plate mark 12.9 x 9.9 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK1715
Pictorial Collection U6304

William Hodges was appointed official voyage artist for Cook’s second Pacific voyage, leaving England on board the Resolution in 1772. Admiralty orders stated that Cook should ensure that Hodges ‘diligently employ himself in making Drawings of Paintings of such Places as you may touch at that may be worthy of notice in the course of your voyage as also of such other Objects and things as may fall within the Compass of his Abilities’.

In addition to the innovative oil paintings of landscapes Hodges executed during the voyage, he also produced a large number of chalk portraits of the men and women of the islands he visited. A number of the portraits, including one of Omai, were engraved for publication on his return to England.

James Caldwall, engraver
(1739–1820)
after William Hodges (1744–1797)
Omai
London: Wm. Strahan & Thos. Cadell, 1 February 1777
engraving; plate mark 30 x 25 cm
Pictorial Collection S1704

Home | Introduction | The truest picture of an arcadia | A Noble Savage in London | The deaths of Cook and Omai | Epilogue


The deaths of Cook and Omai

John Cleveley was chosen as one of the natural-history draughtsmen to accompany Joseph Banks on Cook’s second Pacific voyage. When the alterations Banks had made to the Resolution to accommodate his party were removed—they had made the vessel unseaworthy—he withdrew from the voyage. Cleveley never did travel to the Pacific, but his brother James, who was enlisted as a carpenter on the Resolution for Cook’s third voyage, is said to have made drawings which his brother John used as the basis of this painting.

John Cleveley (c.1745–1786)
Morea [i.e. Moorea] One of the Friendly Islands in the South Seas, 1777
watercolour; 51.3 x 69 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK2847
Pictorial Collection T2810

The rich pictorial record of Cook’s first two voyages to the Pacific clearly established the value of taking artists on voyages of exploration. When plans for the third voyage were announced, the question was not whether an artist should be included amongst the crew, but rather who it should be. It was Daniel Solander who proposed John Webber, a young artist of Swiss extraction who had recently returned to England after studying art in Berne and Paris.

Webber received his appointment from the Admiralty on 24 June 1776 and sailed from Plymouth on the Resolution on 12 July. The terms of his commission, almost identical to those for Hodges four years earlier stated:

‘Whereas we have engaged Mr John Webber Draughtsman and Landskip Painter to proceed in His Majesty’s Sloop under your Command on her present intended voyage, in order to make Drawings and Paintings of such places in the Countries you may touch at in the course of the said Voyage as may be proper to give a more perfect Idea thereof than can be formed by written descriptions only; You are hereby required and directed to receive the said Mr John Webber on board giving him all proper assistance, Victualling him as the Sloop’s company, and taking care that he does diligently employ himself in making Drawings or Paintings of such places as you may touch at, that may be worthy of notice, in the course of your Voyage, as also such other objects and things as may fall within the compass of His abilities.’

John Webber (1752–1793)
A View in Matavai, Otaheite
London: J. Webber, 1 February 1787
engraving; plate mark 29.3 x 43 cm
aquatint by Marie Catherina Prestel
(1747–1794)
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK467/C
Pictorial Collection U1181

John Keyes Sherwin, engraver (1751–1790)
after John Webber (1752–1793)
A Dance in Otaheite
London: 1784
engraving; plate mark 26.5 x 41 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK10975/4
Pictorial Collection U1244

Returning from Unalaska to winter in Hawaii, Cook sighted the island on 26 November 1778. For the next seven weeks he sailed around the islands of Maui and Hawaii, looking for a suitable place to land and trading with the canoes that sailed out to them from the shore. Finally, on 17 January 1779, during the festival of makahiki, the Resolution and Discovery entered Kealakekua Bay and were greeted by huge crowds—Cook estimated up to 800 canoes filled the bay—and it is at this point that Cook’s journal stops.

James King’s journal relates the ‘long and tiresome ceremony’ that Cook was honoured with on shore which included making offerings, wrapping Cook in a red cloth, addressing him as Lono and desiring him to prostrate himself and kiss an image of a god, which it appears he did. Afterwards, ‘two men with wands went before the Captain repeating the same word as before (Lono), & on which all prostrated themselves.’

The exact meaning of this ceremony has been hotly debated ever since, with many observers at the scene, and subsequent readers of the voyage journals, believing that it acknowledged Cook as an incarnation of the god Lono. A number of commentators saw Cook’s death less than a month later at the hands of the Hawaiians as a punishment from God for his presumption in allowing himself to be honoured thus. Others have questioned whether this interpretation might not be yet another example of Eurocentric presumption of superiority.

Samuel Middiman, engraver (1750–1831)
after John Webber (1752–1793)
An Offering before Capt. Cook in the Sandwich Islands
London: 1784
hand-coloured engraving; plate mark 26 x 41 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK5630
Pictorial Collection U1182

John Webber (1752–1793)
A Chief of the Sandwich Islands 1787
oil on canvas; 147.3 x 114.4 cm

Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK1
Pictorial Collection T265

John Webber (1752–1793)
[A Portrait of Poedua] c.1782
oil on canvas; 144.7 x 93.5 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK5192
Pictorial Collection T520

John Rickman, second lieutenant on the Discovery, kept a journal of his voyage which he later published anonymously. Omai is a major figure in his narrative of events, but as he could not have witnessed a number of the incidents he relates, and reveals a tendency to exaggerate and embroider, his accuracy must be questioned.

A few days after the Discovery and Resolution arrived at Tahiti, the two remaining horses carried to the Pacific by Cook were exercised by Omai and one of the officers amid scenes of ‘Uproar and confusion’. In Rickman’s account Omai, dressed in the suit of armour given to him by Lord Sandwich and wielding both pistol and pike, is likened to St. George ‘going to kill the dragon’.

attributed to John Rickman
Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean on Discovery: Performed in the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, Illustrated with Cuts, and a Chart, Shewing the Tracts of the Ships Employed in This Expedition. Faithfully Narrated from the Original MS
London: Printed for E. Newbery, 1781
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK 5094

The importance of discoveries made during Cook’s three Pacific voyages was seen to transcend national rivalries, and translations of his voyage accounts and publications of his maps brought his achievements, and news of his death, to a wide audience.

Claude-Mathieu Fessard, engraver (b.1740)
after John Webber (1752–1793)
Mort tragique du Capitaine Cook, le 15 février, 1779, sur la côte d’Owhy-hee, l’une des Isles Sandwich, découverte par ce navigateur
Paris: 178-?
engraving; 28.4 x 32.5 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK6565
Pictorial Collection U1190

[Samples of tapa cloth mounted in a book entitled: Patterns of South Sea Cloth] 1769–1779?
album of tapa cloth samples; 5 x 9.8 cm or smaller
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK10696
Pictorial Collection A40007308

Home | Introduction | The truest picture of an arcadia | A Noble Savage in London | The deaths of Cook and Omai | Epilogue


Epilogue

In December 1785, taking advantage of the huge public interest in Cook and the Pacific, the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden presented the pantomime OMAI: Or, A Trip Round the World. A mix of farce, topical satire, mime, song, dance, romance, commedia dell’arte and theatrical tableaux, the pantomime used the places visited by Cook as the setting for an improbable story in which Omai has to win the hand of the fair Londina and reclaim his rightful throne.

With ‘authentic’ costumes, stage designs and extraordinary special effects by the artist Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, the production was considered by its audience to be ‘a beautiful illustration of Cook’s Voyages—an illustration of importance to the mature mind of an adult, and delightful to the tender capacity of an infant’. An early example of ‘infotainment’, the play was a huge success with 70 performances in 1785 and 86.

[Playbill for the 44th performance of OMAI: Or, A Trip Round the World]
20 April 1786
23.3 x 16.2 cm
S6538B

Intended as the greatest blockbuster pantomime of the eighteenth century, OMAI: Or, A Trip Round the World opened at Covent Garden Theatre in December 1785. OMAI displayed the combined production talents of set designer and special effects expert Philippe de Loutherbourg, playwright John O’Keeffe, musical composer William Shield and scene painter John Webber, plus at least four other ‘artistic gentlemen’.

De Loutherbourg was most responsible for imbuing OMAI’s farcical plot with a powerful overlay of geographic and ethnographic realism. A member of both the French and English art academies, the Alsatian-born painter had already produced lavish set designs for 30 London pantomimes. De Loutherbourg possessed a landscape painter’s talent for rendering vivid naturalistic scenes, combined with an engineer’s understanding of the mechanics of illusion—including depth of field, clockwork movement, realistic automata and dynamic light and sound effects.

The Times reported that de Loutherbourg had employed John Webber, artist on Cook’s third voyage, to advise on ‘native’ costumes and to paint occasional scenes. It also appears that he may have purchased some of Webber’s examples of ‘Otaheitea dresses’. The newspaper review praised the pantomime’s scenic authenticity, but the designs owe a great deal to perceptions of the exotic and the demands of the stage.

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
Chief Mourner Otahaite 1785
watercolour; 31.4 x 18.9 cm
Pictorial Collection R145

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
Dancer, Otahaite 1785
watercolour; 31.3 x 20.3 cm
Pictorial Collection R148

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
A Man of New Zealand 1785
watercolour; 31.2 x 18.5 cm
Pictorial Collection R150

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
Obereyau [i.e. Oberea] Enchantress 1785
watercolour; 32.2 x 20.2 cm
Pictorial Collection R143

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
Otoo, King of Otahaite 1785
watercolour; 31.2 x 19.2 cm
Pictorial Collection R144

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
Toha 1785
watercolour; 32.3 x 20 cm
Pictorial Collection R142

A. Courcell
Mr Fisher as Tereeboo, King of the Island of Owhyhee, in the Death of Captain Cook
London: G. Creed, 21 September 1818
hand-coloured etching; 20.7 x 17.7 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK1705
Pictorial Collection U7225

Antoine Phelippeaux, engraver (1767–c.1830)
after Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (1757–1810)
Tableau des découvertes du Capne. Cook & de la Pérouse
Paris: chez l'auteur, Bordeaux: chez le Cne. S. Sauveur l'an 7 de la République Française [1798 or 1799]
hand-coloured engraving; 45.5 x 53.1 cm
Pictorial Collection S3539

The apparent ease with which the Tahitians obtained their daily bread—needing only to pluck the fruit of the bread fruit tree—was remarked upon by both Banks and Cook in 1769. Could this wonderful plant be put to some commercial use? Banks thought so, and on 23 December 1787 the Bounty, under Captain William Bligh, sailed from Portsmouth under orders to collect specimens of the tree for propagation in the West Indies. With the slaves freed from the necessity of growing their own food, their owners could maximise the profits gained from their labour.

Due to a series of delays, the Bounty spent five months in Tahiti and many of the crew established relationships with the women on the island. Bligh would later blame the mutiny that broke out in April 1789 on the attractions exerted by the charms of these women, and the comfortable lives his men enjoyed with them. The tale of the mutiny on the Bounty, filled with danger and passion, feats of endurance, disobedience, punishment and death, transfixed the British public, who eagerly bought Thomas Gosse’s strangely beautiful print.

The huge success Gosse’s mezzotint enjoyed tempted him to produce another on an equally topical subject, the new thief colony in New South Wales. Founding of the Settlement of Port-Jackson [i.e. Port Jackson] at Botany Bay in New South Wales, however, was not considered uplifting and did not sell. Gosse abandoned printmaking and became a painter of portrait miniatures in the provincial towns of England.

Thomas Gosse (1765-1844)
Transplanting of the Bread-fruit-trees from Otaheite
London: Thomas Gosse, 1 September 1796
hand-coloured mezzotint; sheet 52.4 x 60.6 cm
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK2010
Pictorial Collection U83

When Omai returned to the Pacific in 1776, many felt that the failure to convert him to Christianity was an important opportunity missed. In 1795 The London Missionary Society was established, and plans to send a group of missionaries to Tahiti were made. 18 missionaries, five accompanied by their wives, sailed for Tahiti with Captain James Wilson in the Duff. In March 1797 King Pomare granted them the use of land at Matavai Bay for their mission.

The London Missionary Society commissioned Robert Smirke to commemorate the event in an oil painting that was displayed as part of a fund-raising drive in England. To raise further money, this engraving by Bartolozzi was produced in two versions—a hand-coloured aquatint and a less expensive monochrome format.

The ceremony depicted was intended as a gesture of hospitality and an invitation to make use of the land in return for both the use of the missionaries’ goods and their services in war. It was not a grant in perpetuity, as the missionaries believed. The mission started successfully but tensions rose on both sides when the missionaries tried to stop the trade in arms and intervened in a feud between Pomare and his son. All but seven of the missionaries left for Sydney in 1799, with the remainder following in 1809.

Francesco Bartolozzi (1727–1815)
after Robert Smirke (1752–1845)
The Cession of the District of Matavai in the Island of Otaheite to Captain James Wilson for the Use of the Missionaries
London: Published for the benefit of the Missionary Society by W. Jeffryes, 179-?
hand-coloured aquatint; plate mark 60 x 78 cm
U5359 NK2028

The Rev. John Williams’ collection of 30 large watercolours relative to the South Seas, of which this striking image is one, was used on lecture tours by Rev. Williams and his ministers in Britain when raising funds for the London Missionary Society. A number of the images are copied from Cook’s and William Ellis’ accounts. Rev. Williams was killed at Erromanga in 1839.

Unknown artist
A Man of the Sandwich Islands with His Helmet 1830?
watercolour; 75 x 51 cm.
Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK1224/1
Pictorial Collection T3334

Home | Introduction | The truest picture of an arcadia | A Noble Savage in London | The deaths of Cook and Omai | Epilogue