$800.00
A somewhat romanticised view of Maori from a French encyclopaedia of peoples of the world
Artist: Lachaussée the Younger (fl. 1806) after Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (1757-1810)
Title: Homme & Femme de la Nouvelle Zelande
Date: 1806
School: French XIXth-century
Medium: hand-coloured etching
Dimensions: 157 x 113mm (plate), 218 x 155mm (support)
Watermark: none
Inscriptions/marks: Titled in the plate lower border << Homme & Femme de la Nouvelle Zelande>>, artists’ names in the plate lower left and lower right <<J.G St. Sauveur del……..Lachaussée jne. sculp>>. Publication details in the plate upper left and upper right <<Amériq. Mérid…………..L’An 1806……..Sauvages.>>
Condition: fine condition, original colours very fresh
Description: A Māori man and woman standing on shore holding weapons. The woman is wearing a cloak with green stripes and a red underskirt. Around her neck hang two rows of red beads and one row around her upper left arm. Her hair is pulled flat on top and is frizzy and loose around the sides. She holds a tewhatewha in her left hand. The man wears a blue skirt with vertical stripes and wears a cloak pinned together below the neck with a red tie. His hair is in a topknot style with a red feather and a red earring hangs from his left ear. He holds a long spear in his left hand and a green small object in his right hand-possibly a mere or club. In the background is a waka with six rowers and on the left is a European (?) man in trousers standing with arms upstretched to a palm tree possibly picking fruit from it. The figures are loosely based on the illustrations to the published accounts of Cook’s voyages. The etching is a page from a book by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur, Voyages Pittoresques dans les quatre parties du monde, ou troisieme edition de l’encyclopedie des voyages, contenant les costumes des principaux peuples de L’Europe, de l’Asie, de l’Afrique, de l’Amerique, et des Sauvages de la mer du sud... Paris, 1806. vol 2, unpaginated. Fifth to last section
Reference: National Library of New Zealand, Alexander Turnbull Library
Provenance: Art + Object, Auckland
