1774 Fly Whisk of the Tahitians with Its Handles
DESCRIPTION
A Tahitian fly whisk and its carved handles appear in this excerpted plate from the French edition of John Hawkesworth's account of the voyages of Byron, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook.
In it, a long fly whisk of shaggy fibers fans out from a central handle wrapped in bands, flanked by two tall handles each topped by a small carved figure. Smaller fittings lie scattered along the lower edge. The caption reads "Émouchoir des Otahitiens avec ses manches," or "Fly whisk of the Tahitians with its handles."
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
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