• Title : Tikopia et Vanikoro: Costumes des habitans de Vanikoro: Costumes des habitans de Tikopia
• Size: 19 1/2in x 13in (495mm x 330mm)
• Condition: (A+) Fine Good Condition
• Date : 1836
• Ref #:  31735

Description:
This large, magnificent, original antique lithograph print of the peoples of the island of Vanikoro & Tikopia, part of the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific (and last resting place of the ill fated La Perouse expedition), by Louis Auguste de Sainson, artist on the Astrolabe, during the first of Dumont D Urvilles voyages to the South Seas, between 1826 - 1829, was engraved by Antoine Maurin 1793 - 1860 and published in the 1836 1st edition of Dumont d Urvilles Voyage de la corvette L Astrolabe: exécuté par ordre du roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829......

Louis Auguste de Sainson, (1800-1848). Sainson was a French draftsman & artist who specialized in natural history and geography. He accompanied the expedition of the corvette L Astrolabe as a naturalist directed by Jules Dumont d\'Urville between 1826-1829.
He began his naval career in a secretarial position at the French Atlantic port of Rochefort, working there from 1825 till 1826. He then volunteered to join the Astrolabe as a draughtsman, after being recommended to the expedition by Quoy, one of the naturalists on the expedition, joining the ship at Toulon on 7 February 1826.
He was responsible for the bulk of the drawings produced during the expedition, with over 500 in three years. Many of his drawings paintings and prints now reside in Australian, New Zealand & French museums.

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: - Early
Colors used: - Yellow, pink, green, blue
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 19 1/2in x 13in (495mm x 330mm)
Plate size: - 19 1/2in x 13in (495mm x 330mm)
Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)

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

Background: 
Vanikoro (sometimes wrongly named Vanikolo) is an island in the Santa Cruz group, located 118 kilometres to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group. It is part of the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.
The first sighting of Vanikoro by Europeans was in September 1595, by the second Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña. It was sighted by Lorenzo Barreto, while in command of one of the smaller vessels on a voyage around the then Santa Cruz, which is today\'s Nendo Island.
The French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse was stranded on Vanikoro after both his vessels, La Boussole and the Astrolabe, struck the then unknown reefs of the island in 1788. It is reported that some of the men were killed by the local inhabitants, while the surviving sailors built a smaller vessel and left the island, but were never seen again. Those that remained on the island died before search parties of Dumont D Urville arrived in 1826.

Tikopia is a small high island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Solomon Islands of Melanesia, but is culturally Polynesian. The first Europeans arrived on 22 April 1606 as part of the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós.
In 1964, explorers found artefacts from the shipwreck of the expedition of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse.