1785 Young Woman of Tahiti Dancing
DESCRIPTION
A young Tahitian woman in full dance costume appears in this excerpted plate from the French edition of the official account of Captain Cook's third voyage.
In it, a dancer turns with her arms outstretched and fingers spread, wearing a tall headdress set with small white flowers, feathered tufts at her breast, and a great pleated fan of cloth at her hips above a long skirt that sweeps the ground. A thatched house and dense trees stand behind her. The caption reads "Une jeune femme de O-Tahiti dansant," or "A young woman of Tahiti dancing."
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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