• Title : Debarquement A Erramanga, Lune Des Nouvelles Hebrides (Landing at Erramanga, of the new Hebrides)
• Size: 19in x 10in (485mm x 255mm)
• Ref #:  31828
• Date : 1778
• Condition: (A) Very Good Condition

Description:
This large original copper-plate engraved antique print of crew and Marines of HMS Resolution landing on the Island of Erromango - with Resolution in the background - an island in the Vanuatu (New Hebrides) group of Islands, visited by Captain James Cook in 1774, 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.

(August 1774)............on 2nd they looked for an anchorage down the west coast, the next day down the east coast, finally anchoring on 4th. Cook went with two boats to view the coast and to look for a proper landing place, wood and Water. At \"a Sandy Beach, where I could step out of the boat without weting a foot [he] landed in the face of a great Multitude with nothing but a green branch in my hand... I was received very courteously... in short I was charmed with thier behavour\". Soon, however, he had to give orders to fire as they now began to Shoot their Arrows and throw darts and Stones at us, the first discharge threw them into confusion but a nother discharge was hardly sufficient to drive them of the beach and after all they continued to throw Stones from behind the trees and bushes.............

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 10in (485mm x 255mm)
Plate size: - 19in x 9 1/2in (485mm x 245mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - None
Plate area: - Folds as issued, creasing along folds
Verso: - None

Background: 
Erromango is the fourth largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago. With a land area of 891.9 square kilometres it is the largest island in Tafea Province, the southernmost of Vanuatu\'s six administrative regions.
James Cook was the first European to land on Erromango, landing near present-day Potnarvin in the north-east on 4 August 1774. Cook and his landing party were set upon by a group of local men, and in the scuffle that followed, several of Cook\'s men were injured and a number of Erromangans killed. Following this incident, Cook gave the name Traitor\'s head to the peninsula adjacent to Potnarvin

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.
The Vanuatu group of islands first had contact with Europeans in 1606, when the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, 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..

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.