HODGES, William

Seven engraved Portraits of Natives...

> click here to see the full size image.

London, 1776. Seven engraved plates, of which two are of a demonstrable early state, each trimmed almost to image and laid onto wood backing; some soiling and staining with some surface wear; captioned on the back in a contemporary hand, two with a further ms. endorsement in another early hand. An important series of engraved portraits from Cook's second voyage, all of them after William Hodges, and all mounted on timber. Two of the images are in states not recorded in Joppien and Smith, and predate even the large paper advance issue of the plates. The remainder appear to be as issued, although perhaps more finely inked than the published versions. On the back of all the simple timber mounts are manuscript captions by an early hand, which parallel, but do not always simply match, the final printed captions.

The mere existence of these early issues is an exciting find in itself, but the images also come with an intriguing and plausible provenance which suggests they may have been the gift of Cook himself. On the back of two of the images there are inscriptions by a second early hand, to the effect that 'this with other engravings in the Parlour at Goodamoor were presented to Paul Henry Ourry Commissioner of Plymouth Dockyard by the celebrated Navigator Captain Cook himself'. Ourry was an influential and well-connected figure in his day, especially after he was given the important position of Commissioner of the Navy, resident at Plymouth, in 1775. Ourry Island (now better known as Vanikoro, the island on which La Pérouse was killed) was named for him by Carteret and he was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. His family seat was indeed Goodamoor, in Devon.

Due to his position, Ourry certainly met Cook when he stopped at the Plymouth roadstead in preparation for the third voyage. He came aboard the Resolution on Sunday, 30 June 1776, and Cook noted in his journal that the Commissioner provided with 'readiness... the little assistance we wanted from the Naval yard'. Ourry also went aboard on 10 July to pay the officers and crew (Beaglehole, III, pp. 6-7).

Moreover, although the engravings have an official date of publication of 16 July 1776, some four days after the ships sailed, Cook is known to have seen a significant selection of Hodges' engravings, and actually took several examples aboard. One of his letters, written from the Cape in November 1776, states 'I found all your friends at this place well, they much admire your drawings indeed I should wonder if they did not' (Beaglehole, III, p. 1517). "Drawings", in this context, must be taken to refer to the engraved prints: it is scarcely possible that Cook would have retrieved the originals from the Admiralty or from Hodges. Exactly when the proofs were ready is not clear, but they would certainly have been nearing completion in June and, indeed, this timing would provide the logical explanation for the two images in this set that are in an unrecorded and unissued state.

This all tends to add weight to the claims made in the captions, for Cook had a reason for giving the present to such an important officer of the Royal Navy, and he had some of Hodges' work aboard. One would also imagine that the engravings he had with him would likely have been just such a combination of proofs and issued plates. As a result, not only do these images represent an important and unusual addition to Hodges' canon, the known facts of Cook's preparation for his third voyage, in combination with the unusual states of two of the images, suggest the tantalizing possibility of these seven portraits being the gift of Cook himself.
Joppien & Smith, 2.54A, 2.70A, 2.71A, 2.90A, 2.105A, 2.131A, 2.140D.

• AUD 21,000.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: 605_505

• librero: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)