1778 Capt. Cook Antique Print Portrait of Oedidee, Bora Bora met by Cook in 1773

Publisher : Captain James Cook

Description:
This fine original copper-plate engraved antique print, a portrait of O-Hedidee or Oedidee of the island of Bora Bora in the Society Islands, met by Captain James Cook during his 2nd Voyage of Discovery in the South Seas in 1773, was engraved by Robert Benard - after William Hodges - and was published in the 1778 French edition of Capt. James Cooks 2nd Voyage of Discovery to the South Seas A voyage towards the South Pole, and round the World. Performed in His Majestys ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775..... Paris : Hotel de Thou ......1778

O-Hedidee or Oedidee, was a native of Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia, was about 17 or 18 years of age when he was taken on board the Resolution at Raiatea Island on 17 September 1773. He is described in Hawkesworths account as a young man with curly hair and flattish nose, wearing a gown. Cook wrote: he may be of use to us if we should fall in with and touch at any isles in our rout to the west which was my only motive for taking him on board. Cook Journals II.
O-Hedidee traveled with Cook from Raiatea to New Zealand, Easter Island, and Tahiti, returning to Raiatea on 4 June 1774, having been with the Resolutions company for seven months.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 10in x 8in (255mm x 205mm)
Plate size: - 9 1/2in x 7 1/4in (240mm x 185mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Light soiling in margins
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
Bora Bora is a 30.55 km2 island group in the Leeward group in the western part of the Society Islands of French Polynesia, an overseas collective of France in the Pacific Ocean. The main island, located about 230 kilometres northwest of Papeete, Tahiti is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. In the center of the island are the remnants of an extinct volcano rising to two peaks, Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu, the highest point at 727 metres
The island was inhabited by Polynesian settlers around the 4th century C.E. The first European sighting was made by Jakob Roggeveen in 1722.
James Cook sighted the island on 29 July 1769, using a Tahitian navigator, Tupaia. The London Missionary Society arrived in 1820 and founded a Protestant church in 1890. Bora Bora was an independent kingdom until 1888 when its last queen Teriimaevarua III was forced to abdicate by the French who annexed the island as a colony.

William Hodges RA 1744 – 1797 was an English painter. He was a member of James Cooks second voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and is best known for the sketches and paintings of locations he visited on that voyage, including Table Bay, Tahiti, Easter Island, and the Antarctic.
Between 1772 and 1775 Hodges accompanied James Cook to the Pacific as the expeditions artist. Many of his sketches and wash paintings were adapted as engravings in the original published edition of Cooks journals from the voyage.
Most of the large-scale landscape oil paintings from his Pacific travels for which Hodges is best known were finished after his return to London; he received a salary from the Admiralty for the purposes of completing them. These paintings depicted a stronger light and shadow than had been usual in European landscape tradition. Contemporary art critics complained that his use of light and colour contrasts gave his paintings a rough and unfinished appearance.
Hodges also produced many valuable portrait sketches of Pacific islanders and scenes from the voyage involving members of the expedition..

Robert Bénard 1734 – 1777 was an 18th-century French engraver.
Specialized in the technique of engraving, Robert Ménard is mainly famous for having supplied a significant amount of plates (at least 1,800) to the Encyclopédie by Diderot & d\'Alembert from 1751.
Later, publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke reused many of his productions to illustrate the works of his catalog.

$75.00