When English naturalist Joseph Banks (1743-1820) accompanied
Captain James Cook (1728-1779) on his historic mission into the
Pacific, the Endeavour voyage of 1768-71, he took with him a team
of collectors and illustrators. Banks and his team returned from
the voyage with unprecedented collections of artefacts and
specimens of stunning birds, fish and other animals as well as
thousands of plants, most seen for the first time in Europe. They
produced, too, remarkable landscape and figure drawings of the
peoples encountered on the voyage along with detailed journals and
descriptions of the places visited, which, with the first detailed
maps of these lands (Tahiti, New Zealand and the East Coast of
Australia), were afterwards used to create lavishly illustrated
accounts of the mission. These caused a storm of interest in Europe
where plays, poems and satirical caricatures were also produced to
celebrate and examine the voyage, its personnel and many 'new'
discoveries. Along with contemporary portraits of key personalities
aboard the ship, scale models and plans of the ship itself,
scientific instruments taken on the voyage, commemorative medals
and sketches, the objects (over 140) featured in this new book will
tell the story of the Endeavour voyage and its impact ahead of the
250th anniversary in 2018 of the launch of this seminal mission.
Artwork made both during and after the voyage will be seen
alongside actual specimens. And by comparing the voyage originals
with the often stylized engravings later produced in London for the
official account, the book will investigate how knowledge gained on
the mission was gathered, revised and later received in Europe.
Items separated in some cases for more than two centuries will be
brought together to reveal their fascinating history not only
during but since that mission. Original voyage specimens will
feature together with illustrations and descriptions of them,
showing a rich diversity of newly discovered species and how Banks
organized this material, planning but ultimately failing to publish
it. In fact, many of the objects in the book have never been
published before. The book will focus on the contribution of
Banks's often neglected artists Sydney Parkinson, Herman Diedrich
Spoering, Alexander Buchan as well as the priest and Pacific
voyager Tupaia, who joined Endeavour in the Society Islands, none
of whom survived the mission. These men illustrated island scenes
of bays, dwellings, canoes as well as the dress, faces and
possessions of Pacific peoples. Burial ceremonies, important
religious sites and historic encounters were all depicted. Of
particular interest, and only recently recognised as by him, are
the original artworks of Tupaia, who produced as part of this
mission the first charts and illustrations on paper by any
Polynesian. The surviving Endeavour voyage illustrations are the
most important body of images produced since Europeans entered this
region, matching the truly historic value of the plant specimens
and artefacts that will be seen alongside them.
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