Woman of Easter Island (unfinished state)

This engraving, after drawings by artist William Hodges, is in John Hawkesworth's account (1773) of the voyages of Captain James Cook, Joseph Banks and Captain John Byron.

Captain James Cook (1728-1779) made three separate voyages to the Pacific (with the ships Endeavour, Resolution, Adventure, and Discovery) and did more than any other voyager to explore the Pacific and Southern Ocean. Cook not only encountered Pacific cultures for the first time, but also assembled the first large-scale collections of Pacific objects to be brought back to Europe. He was killed in Hawaii in 1779.

William Hodges (1744 - 1797) joined Cook's second expedition to the South Pacific as a draughtsman 1772-75 and was employed by the Admiralty in finishing his drawings.

This is likely from Cook's visit to Easter Island in 1775. This woman has large perforations of the ear-lobe, is wearing a conical straw broad-brimmed bonnet as protection against the sun. Her head and shoulders are frontally posed, and she wears a necklace with a shell pendant.

Mounted in album with PAI2055-PAI2083, PAI2085-PAI2127.; No.28.

Object Details

ID: PAI2084
Type: Print
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Hodges, William; Caldwall, James Strahan, William Cadell, Thomas
Date made: Feb 1777
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Sheet: 254 x 193 mm; page: 590 mm x 460 mm
Parts: Volume of Plates to Cook's Voyages. Voyage II (Album)
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