Plate 21 from the official atlas to Captain Cook's third voyage
Artist: after John Webber (1751–1793), official artist to the voyage ("J. Webber del.")
Engraver: William Ellis ("W. Ellis sculp.")
Place today: Tongatapu, the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga
People: Tongan
Published: London, G. Nicol and T. Cadell, plate first issued 1784 for A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean by Captain James Cook and Captain James King
Technique: copperplate engraving on wove paper
Plate mark: 16 x 10 in (40 x 25 cm)
Sheet: 21.5 x 16 in (55 x 40 cm)
A quiet, finely worked copperplate view of a fa'itoka, a chiefly burial ground on Tongatapu, the island the voyagers called Tongataboo. Four low thatched houses stand on a raised, walled mound in a clearing, ringed by coconut palms and tall broad-leafed trees under a soft cloudy sky. In the foreground a man walks toward the graves with bundles slung from a pole across his shoulders, while at the left a group sits in the shade beneath an open-sided thatched shelter. Every surface is built from Ellis's dense, patterned cutting, from the rippled turf to the feathery canopy.
Cook's ships lay at Tongatapu for about a month in June and July 1777, the longest stay of the voyage in what he named the Friendly Islands. The officers described the fa'itoka as a stone wall enclosing mounds, each topped by a house, where the leading men of the community were buried. Webber composed the scene much as a European painter would a classical landscape, and it has often been compared to Poussin's pastoral scenes of tombs in an idealised countryside. The result is one of the most admired landscapes in the whole atlas, and one of the earliest European views of Tonga.
Condition: a strong, even impression, and a very clean sheet with its original yellow gilt edge. A small tear of about 1.5 in (4 cm) in the right margin has been repaired on the back, well clear of the image. There are only a few faint specks in the margins and minor handling wear at the sheet edges. Please see the photos.
References: Beddie 1743-21.
Collections: impressions of this plate are held at Royal Museums Greenwich, London, the National Library of Australia, the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
This is an original antique copperplate engraving, not a reproduction.
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