[Views in the South Seas.]

£30,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A rare French set of four prints depicting scenes in the Pacific from Captain Cook’s third and final voyage, including a depiction of Cook’s death at the hands of Hawaiians. These are early and beautiful images of the South Seas, exemplary of the European fascination with Pacific exploration during the eighteenth century. Joppien and Smith call them “the kind of prints that anyone who travelled with Cook, whether officer, midshipman or able seaman, might want to possess to remind him and his family of the days when he travelled with Cook.” According to the publisher’s prospectus, these views were produced “on the spot” by James Cleveley, a carpenter aboard the Resolution , and “redrawn and inimitably painted in water-colours by his brother…John Cleveley, and from which the plates were engraved, in the best manner by Mr. Jukes.” However, in the absence of any surviving drawings by James Cleveley, Joppien and Smith discount this claim, believing that the kinship between the two was, as far as these images are concerned, coincidental, being simply used to promote the prints, while no actual graphic link existed. John Cleveley was a talented maritime painter, and these images, engraved by F. Jukes are lovely representations of early contact between Europeans and Pacific islanders. Each print shows the Resolution and the Discovery at anchor in the Sandwich (Hawaiian) or Society islands. This French set, issued just a year later, all include lengthy captions describing each scene a

• Year: 1789

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