Omai, a Native of the Island of Utietea [i.e. Ulietea] (detail) Les Sauvages de la mer Pacifique 1805 Cook & Omai: The Cult of the South Seas Les Sauvages de la mer Pacifique 1805
Introduction The truest picture of an arcadia A Noble Savage in London The deaths of Cook and Omai Epilogue


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Morea [i.e. Moorea] One of the Friendly Islands in the South Seas, 1777

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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

 

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.

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