• Title : Chef De L Isle de Ste. Christine
• Ref  :  31779
• Size: 10in x 8in (255mm x 205mm)
• Date : 1778
• Condition: (A+) Fine Condition

Description:
This fine original copper-plate engraved antique print, a portrait of Chief of Tahuata Island, Santa Cristina, in the Marquesas Islands, South Pacific, visited by Captain James Cook during his 2nd Voyage of Discovery in the South Seas in 1774, was engraved by Robert Benard - after William Hodges - and was published in the 1778 French edition of Capt. James Cooks 2nd Voyage of Discovery to the South Seas A voyage towards the South Pole, and round the World. Performed in His Majestys ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775..... Paris : Hotel de Thou ......1778

Cook Diary (1774)
Apr. 7 Thu. Sights Hood’s Island (Fatu Huku), St. Pedro (Motare). La Dominica (Hiva Oa), St. Christina (Tahuata).
Apr 8 Fri. Sails along southern coast of Hiva Oa looking for anchorage. Anchors in Resolution (formerly Madre de Dios) Bay (Vaitahu Bay). Canoes arrive, gifts are exchanged. Natives killed after an iron stanchion is stolen.
Apr 9 Sat. Goes ashore, gifts exchanged, food obtained.
Apr 10 Sun. Goes ashore to south end of Bay and visits house of dead man. Gifts exchanged.
Apr 11 Mon. Goes ashore to south, again. Finds trade becoming expensive because of lavish gifts by his “gentlemen”.
Apr 12 Tue. Sails towards St. Dominica. No anchorage visible. Heads SW away from islands.
Apr 13 Wed. Sights last of the five main islands, Magdalena (Fatu Hiva).

General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 10in x 8in (255mm x 205mm)
Plate size: - 9 1/2in x 7 1/4in (240mm x 185mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)

Imperfections:
Margins: - Light soiling in margins
Plate area: - None
Verso: - None

Background: 
Tahuata is the smallest of the inhabited Marquesas Islands, in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean.
The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mandaña on 22 July 1595. They charted the island as Santa Cristina. They landed at Vaitahu that they named Madre de Dios (Gods Mother in Spanish). According to the Spanish accounts Tahuata had fowls, fish, sugar cane, plantains, nuts and fruits. The existent town was built on two sides of a rectangular space, the houses being of timber and intertwined canes. A building which the Spaniards supposed to be a religious one stood outside the town, in a space enclosed by palisades, and containing some ill-carved images before which were offerings and provisions. The people had large and well constructed sailing canoes. Their tools were made of shells and fish bones. They used slings, stones, and lances as weapons.
Tahuata was visited by Captain James Cook in 1774 and Admiral Dupetit-Thouars in 1842, who signed the treaty annexing the Marquesas Islands to France.

The Marquesas Islands are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collective of France in the southern Pacific Ocean.
The first Europeans to reach the Marquesas may have been the crew of San Lesmes, a Spanish vessel which disappeared in a storm in June 1526; it was part of an expedition headed by García Jofre de Loaísa. The Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña reached them seventy years later on 21 July 1595. He named them after his patron, García Hurtado de Mendoza, 5th Marquis of Cañete (Spanish: Marqués de Cañete), who served as Viceroy of Peru from 1590 to 1596. |Mendaña visited first Fatu Hiva and then Tahuata before continuing on to the Solomon Islands. His expedition charted the four southernmost Marquesas as Magdalena (Fatu Hiva), Dominica (Hiva ʻOa), San Pedro (Moho Tani), and Santa Cristina (Tahuata).
In the late 16th century European explorers estimated the population at more than 100,000. Europeans and Americans were impressed with how easy life appeared to be in the islands, which had a rich habitat and environment. In 1791 the American maritime fur trader Joseph Ingraham first visited the northern Marquesas while commanding the brig Hope. He named them the Washington Islands. In 1813 Commodore David Porter claimed Nuku Hiva for the United States, but the United States Congress never ratified that claim.
In 1842 France conducted a successful military operation on behalf of the native chief Iotete, who claimed he was king of the whole island of Tahuata. The government laid claim to the whole group and established a settlement on Nuku Hiva. That settlement was abandoned in 1857, but France re-established control over the group in 1870. It later incorporated the Marquesas into French Polynesia.

William Hodges RA 1744 – 1797 was an English painter. He was a member of James Cooks second voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and is best known for the sketches and paintings of locations he visited on that voyage, including Table Bay, Tahiti, Easter Island, and the Antarctic.
Between 1772 and 1775 Hodges accompanied James Cook to the Pacific as the expeditions artist. Many of his sketches and wash paintings were adapted as engravings in the original published edition of Cooks journals from the voyage.
Most of the large-scale landscape oil paintings from his Pacific travels for which Hodges is best known were finished after his return to London; he received a salary from the Admiralty for the purposes of completing them. These paintings depicted a stronger light and shadow than had been usual in European landscape tradition. Contemporary art critics complained that his use of light and colour contrasts gave his paintings a rough and unfinished appearance.
Hodges also produced many valuable portrait sketches of Pacific islanders and scenes from the voyage involving members of the expedition..

Robert Bénard 1734 – 1777 was an 18th-century French engraver.
Specialized in the technique of engraving, Robert Ménard is mainly famous for having supplied a significant amount of plates (at least 1,800) to the Encyclopédie by Diderot & d\'Alembert from 1751.
Later, publisher Charles-Joseph Panckoucke reused many of his productions to illustrate the works of his catalog.