1778 Capt Cook Antique Print View of Island of Nomuka, Haapai isles Tonga, 1773

Cartographer : Captain James Cook

  • Title : Vue de L isle de Rotterdam (View of the Island of Rotterdam)
  • Size: 14in x 9 1/2in (360mm x 245mm)
  • Ref #:  31808
  • Date : 1778
  • Condition: (B) Good Condition

Description:
This large original copper-plate engraved antique print a view of the Island of Nomuka (named Rotterdam by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1643) a small island in the southern part of the Haapai islands, in the Kingdom of Tonga, visited by Captain James Cook in 1773, during his 2nd Voyage of Discovery to the South Seas, 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.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 14in x 9 1/2in (360mm x 245mm)
Plate size: - 14in x 9 1/2in (360mm x 245mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Small restoration to top margin and image centerfold
Plate area: - Small restoration to top margin and image centerfold
Verso: - Small restoration to top margin and image centerfold

Background: 
Nomuka is a small island in the southern part of the Ha apai group of islands in the Kingdom of Tonga. It is part of the Nomuka Group of islands, also called the Otu Muomua.
Notable historic visitors include Abel Tasman, Captain Cook, Captain Bligh, and William Mariner. The Dutch Abel Tasman made the first European discovery of the island on 24 January 1643. A party went ashore to get water, and the description of the huge lake they brought back afterwards leaves little doubt about the identification. Tasman called it Rotterdam island, after the city of Rotterdam, a major port in the Netherlands, and noted in his maps the indigenous name of Amamocka, a misspelling of ʻa Nomuka, a being a subject indicating article. We also find the name of Amorkakij for Nomuka iki. Captain Bligh in the Bounty spent 3 days wooding and watering at Nomuka in April 1789. The Mutiny on the Bounty occurred the day after they left.
Captain Cook Cook did not encounter the Tongan islands until his Second Voyage, when he stopped at both Eua and Tongatapu (or, by Tasmans nomenclature, Middleburg and Amsterdam respectively) in October of 1773. Here he was welcomed a shore by acclamations from an immence crowd of Men and Women not one of which had so much as a stick in their hands.
Indeed, Cook found the islanders to be so accommodating that he returned to the archipelago in 1774 on his way back from New Zealand. Stopping at the island of Nomuka, Cook was sought out by name, and with this proof that these people have a communication with Amsterdam, the cultural unity of the islands was established.
It was at this time that he famously named the island group the Friendly Archipelago, as a lasting friendship seems to subsist among the Inhabitants and their Courtesy to Strangers intitles them to that Name.
Cook Third Voyage also included a visit to Tonga, this time for a stay of several months. Cook first dropped anchor at Nomuka in May, and then, at the invitation of the great chief Finau, travelled to another island, Lifuka. Here, Cook and his men were treated to such entertainments as would have met with universal applause on a European Theatre

Haapai is a group of islands, islets, reefs and shoals with an area of 109.30 square kilometres in the central part of the Kingdom of Tonga, with the Tongatapu group to the south and the Vavau group to the north. Seventeen of the Ha apai islands are populated with altogether 6,616 people.
The first European to visit Ha apai, was Abel Tasman in 1643. Captain James Cook in 1774 and 1777, made several stops on the islands. He gave them the name of Friendly Islands in 1777.
On 18 May 1777, Cook arrived with Omai. They were greeted by Fatafehi Paulaho, King of the Isles or Tui Tonga, the most sacred chief in these islands.

Tonga officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 169 islands, of which 36 are inhabited. The total surface area is about 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean. It has a population of 107,122 people, of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu.
The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616 when the Dutch vessel Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten, made a short visit to trade. Later came other Dutch explorers, including Jacob Le Maire (who called on the northern island of Niuatoputapu); and in 1643 Abel Tasman (who visited Tongatapu and Haapai).
Later noteworthy European visitors included James Cook (Royal Navy) in 1773, 1774, and 1777; Alessandro Malaspina (Spanish Navy) in 1793; the first London missionaries in 1797; and the Wesleyan Methodist Reverend Walter Lawry in 1822.
Tonga became known in the West as the Friendly Islands because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the inasi festival, the yearly donation of the First Fruits to the Tui Tonga (the islands paramount chief) and so received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, the chiefs wanted to kill Cook during the gathering but could not agree on a plan.

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.

$99.00