1785 Young Woman of Tahiti Bringing a Present
DESCRIPTION
A young Tahitian woman wrapped in a great bundle of cloth appears in this excerpted plate from the French edition of the official account of Captain Cook's third voyage.
In it, a young woman with flowers in her hair stands with her chin resting on one hand, encircled at the waist by a broad hoop of draped and festooned cloth that falls to the ground around her. Palms rise behind her at right, and hills fade into the distance at left. The caption reads "Jeune femme de O-Tahiti apportant un présent," or "Young woman of Tahiti bringing a present."
Cook's Third Voyage
Captain James Cook's third and final voyage, aboard the Resolution and Discovery from 1776 to 1780, crossed the Pacific by way of Tonga and Tahiti before sailing north to the coast of northwest America, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779, and his ships returned home under other commanders. The expedition's artist, John Webber, recorded the people, places, and objects they encountered, and his drawings were engraved for the official account published in London in 1784. A French translation followed in Paris in 1785, with its plates re-engraved under the direction of Robert Bénard.
CONDITION
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