Artist unknown: Gesicht van de Karakakooa Baai aan het Eiland Owhyhee [1779. Drawn ca 1790?]

Watercolour copy by an unknown Dutch artist after the engraving by John Webber (1751-1793), published in Cook & King (1784, plate 68), 'A view of Karakakooa, in Owyhee' from the third voyage of Captain James Cook, shows Cook's ships the Resolution and the Endeavour, both flying the blue ensign, arriving in Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii, and four Hawaiian boats moving to meet them. Further canoes are dragged up on the shore at the right, and there are huts near the water's edge.

The verso contains a handwritten extract in Dutch, translated from the words of Georg Forster, about the bay and Hawaii. It is likely to be a translation from Forster's "A voyage round the world in His Britannic Majesty years 1772, 3, 4 and 5", published in 1777.

The copyist has made some changes to Webber's original, moving the man lying on his surfboard, in the foreground, further towards the right. The vendor's catalogue notes that this "is the earliest European depiction of board-surfing. No surfboard or board-rider is shown in any of the other depictions of the ships in Hawaii, by either Webber or Ellis".

Other works apparently by the same hand and of the same series, were acquired by Alexander Turnbull, and are housed at E-329-f.

Other Titles - A view of Karakakooa, Kealakekua Bay in the island of Hawaii

Inscriptions: Recto - beneath image - [Title, handwritten, in Dutch]

Quantity: 1 watercolour(s).

Physical Description: Watercolour, 238 x 398 mm, on sheet 269 x 420 mm.

Alternative form available: Image digitised as front, inscriptions on reverse digitised as back