1774 Carved Chest of the Inhabitants of New Zealand
DESCRIPTION
A carved Māori chest from New Zealand appears in this excerpted plate from the French edition of John Hawkesworth's account of the voyages of Byron, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook.
In it, the same chest is shown twice: at left with its lid opened to reveal the hollow inside, and at right closed. Every surface is covered in deeply cut spirals and scrolling curves, with small carved figures at the ends. The caption reads "Coffre sculpté des habitans de la Nouvelle Zélande," or "Carved chest of the inhabitants of New Zealand."
Hawkesworth's Voyages
In 1773 John Hawkesworth published, at the Admiralty's commission, a compiled account of the British voyages of John Byron, Samuel Wallis, Philip Carteret, and James Cook's first voyage, which together opened the South Pacific to European readers. It was translated into French the following year as Relation des voyages entrepris par ordre de Sa Majesté britannique (Paris: Saillant et Nyon and Panckoucke, 1774), with its plates re-engraved under the direction of Robert Bénard and others. Wallis's Dolphin reached Tahiti in 1767, the first European ship known to have done so, and Cook's Endeavour followed in 1769.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622