Shows a symmetrical volcanic peak in the middle distance, standing beyond a bush-covered plain. In the foreground is a stream flowing over rocks, with trees, including tree ferns, framing the mountain.

A lithograph version of this view was published by the New Zealand Company in 1842 to promote colonisation of New Zealand. The foreground of the view in the lithograph has been rearranged, based on an intermediate watercolour created by Thomas Allom, after Heaphy's original.

Reproduced in 1964 as one of the second series of "Turnbull Prints", in an edition of 1500

The symmetry of the mountain is inaccurate and it is thought that the artist may have seen it partially cloud-covered when he took his preliminary sketch for this watercolour. A preliminary pencil version of this view is held at A-145-009. The foreground landforms are different but the stream and over-symmetrical mountain are much the same, apart from a more accurate protruberance (Fantham's Peak) on the right flank of the mountain

Most likely to have been painted in September 1840, when the artist travelled to Ngamotu (New Plymouth) with the New Zealand Company surveyors Robert Park and Robert Stokes.

Other Titles - Mount Taranaki

Inscriptions: Recto - beneath image - [Title]; Recto - bottom left - Chas Heaphy

Quantity: 1 watercolour(s).

Physical Description: Watercolour 460 x 660 mm

Provenance: Purchased by Alexander Turnbull from Francis Edwards in London, 1915, as part of the New Zealand Company Collection.