A portrait of a tattooed man by Sir Joshua Reynolds sold at auction for £10,343,500 in November 2001.

The painting, which was sold by Sothebys in London, depicts Omai (Mae), a tattooed Tahitian man who came to England in 1774. Omai was taken around the country by Sir Joseph Banks, who had accompanied Captain Cook on his voyage to the Pacific in the Endeavour. While he was in England, Omai was fêted by society. He was introduced to King George III and taken to the state opening of Parliament. The novelist Fanny Burney described him as 'tall and very well made, much darker than I expected to see him.' She added; 'he seems to shame Education for his manners are so extremely graceful, and he is so polite, attentive and easy that you would have thought he came from some Foreign Court...he appears to be a perfectly rational and intelligent man, with an understanding far superior to the common race of us cultivated gentry'. Omai returned to Tahiti with Captain Cook's third voyage in 1776.