WEBBER, John (1751-1793). Views in the South Seas. London: Boydell & Co., 1808 [1820].

WEBBER, John (1751-1793).

Views in the South Seas, from Drawings by the late James Webber, Draftsman on Board the Resolution, Captain James Cooke [sic], From the Year 1776 to 1780. London: Boydell & Co., 1808 [but 1820].

Collection of sixteen hand-colored aquatint plates printed on paper watermarked 1819-1820 (21 x 16 1/4 in.), handsomely framed with accompanying descriptive text.

The best British color plate book devoted to the Pacific, and the only color-plate production relating to Cook's third and fatal voyage to the Pacific from 1776 to 1780. The expedition consisted of two ships, the HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, and 182 men whom the British Admiralty had charged with searching for a Northwest Passage from the western coast of North America. The crew sailed to Cape Town, Kerguelen Island in the southern Indian Ocean, Adventure Bay in Van Diemen's Land, and Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. They then revisited the Friendly and Society Islands. Sailing northwards, Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and reached the North American coast in March 1778. The ships followed the coast northwards to Alaska and the Bering Strait and reached 70°44′N, before being driven back by ice. They returned to the Sandwich Islands and on 14 February 1779 Cook was killed by Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay. Clerke took over the command and in the summer of 1779 the expedition again tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the pack ice beyond Bering Strait. Clerke died in August 1779 and John Gore and James King commanded the ships on the voyage home via Macao and Cape Town. They reached London in October 1780.

Webber was on board with Cook on two voyages and is responsible for most of the engraved images in the atlas which accompanies the narrative of the third voyage. In the present independent production, the artist produces “one of the finest visual statements of the South Seas as a romantic Eden” (Hordern House). Webber was more fully trained than any of the artists of the previous voyages, and he and Cook worked closely together to illuminate “the unavoidable imperfections of written accounts, by enabling us to preserve, and to bring home, such drawings of the most memorable scenes of our transactions, as could only be expected by a professed and skilled artist.” (J. Cook & J. King, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, London 1784, Vol I, p.5). Because he was there with Cook in the field, his paintings “constituted a new visual source for the study of history.” (Smith, Bernard, Art as Information. Sydney, 1978). The lovely views, arranged chronologically (with one exception), include five of Tahiti, two each of Kamchatka and Macao, one of New Zealand, one of Tonga, and the remainder of tropical vegetation. It is the perfect complement to the more formal presentation of the official voyages.

This work has an odd publication history. On his return Webber was appointed by the Admiralty to supervise the production of engravings that were made from his originals to illustrate the official account of 1784; these 12 plates were first published separately by Webber between August 1788 and August 1792, and Boydell first reissued the plates in their present form, with an additional four plates and with descriptive text in 1808, fifteen years after Webber's death. Copies with varying watermark dates are known, but Abbey does not distinguish them as separate editions, nor do other bibliographers: “The title page is dated 1808 in all copies, but the plate imprints are dated April, 1809, and the water mark dates vary widely copy by copy, apparently a feature peculiar to Boydell's color plate books” (Hill). Most copies, as in the present one, have paper with 1819-20 watermarks, suggesting that the bulk of the edition was actually issued then.

The plates are as follows:

1. View in Queen Charlotte's Sound, New Zealand
2. Boats of the Friendly Islands
3. A Sailing Canoe of Otaheite
4. The Plantain Tree, in the Island of Cracatoa
5. A View of Oheitepeha Bay, in the Island of Otaheite
6. Waheiadooa, Chief of Oheitepeha, Lying in State
7. View of the Harbour of Taloo, in the Island of Eimeo
8. A Toopapaoo of a Chief with a Priest making his offering to the Morai, in Huahine
9. The Resolution beating through the Ice, with the Discovery in the most eminent danger in the distance
10. The Narta or Sledg for burdens in Kamtchatka
11. Balagans or Summer Habitation, with the method of drying fish at St. Peter and Paul, Kamtchatka
12. View in Macao, including the residence of Camoens, where he wrote his Lusiad
13. View in Macao
14. A View in the Island of Pulo Condore
15. View in the Island of Cracatoa
16. The Fan Palm in the Island of Cracatoa

Provenance: The Estate of David Spinney.

ABBEY 595. BEDDIE 1872. DAVIDSON, p. 67. HILL 1837. HOLMES 79. DU RIETZ 1341. JOPPIEN & SMITH III, p. 192. TOOLEY 501. MITCHELL LIBRARY “COOK” 1872. FORBES HAWAII 140.