• Title : The Landing at Mallicolo one of the New Hebrides...Published Feb 1st 1777 by Wm. Strahan
• Ref  :  91223
• Size: 19in x 12 ½in (485mm x 320mm)
• Date : 1777
• Condition: (A) Very Good Condition

Description:
This fine original copper-plate engraved antique print of Captain James Cook & his men landing on the Island of Malakula (Mallicolo) in the Vanuatu group of Islands in the South Pacific, visited by Cook during his 2nd Voyage of Discovery to the South Seas in 1774, was engraved by James Basire - after William Hodges - and was published in Captain James Cooks 1777 edition of 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. printed by William Strahan, New Street, Shoe Lane, & Thos. Cadell, in the Strand, London 1777.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 19in x 12 ½in (485mm x 320mm)
Plate size: - 19in x 12in (480mm x 305mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Two very small worm holes
Verso: - None

Background: 
Malakula Island also spelled Malekula, is the second-largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, in the Pacific Ocean region of Melanesia.
First discovered by the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernández de Quirós in 1606 and visited by Captain James Cook in 1774.

Vanuatu officially the Republic of Vanuatu is a Pacific island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 kilometres east of northern Australia, 540 kilometres northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.
Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island in 1606. Since the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies had been unified under the king of Spain in 1580 (following the vacancy of the Portuguese throne, which lasted for sixty years, until 1640, when the Portuguese monarchy was restored), Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies, and named it La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.
The Vanuatu group of islands first had contact with Europeans in 1606, when the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queiros, sailing for the Spanish Crown, arrived on the largest island and called the group of islands La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo or The Southern Land of the Holy Spirit, believing he had arrived in Terra Australis or Australia. The Spanish established a short-lived settlement at Big Bay on the north side of the island. The name Espiritu Santo remains to this day.
Europeans did not return until 1768, when Louis Antoine de Bougainville rediscovered the islands on 22 May, naming them the Great Cyclades. In 1774, Captain Cook named the islands the New Hebrides, a name that would last until independence in 1980.

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.

James Basire 1730–1802, also known as James Basire Sr., was an English engraver. He is the most significant of a family of engravers, and noted for his apprenticing of the young William Blake.