A Toopapao [tupapau] of a chief, with a priest making an offering to the Morai [Huaheine (Fare), Tahiti]

A smaller version of the watercolour drawn on the spot on Huaheine in 1777 (Dixson Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney), for which see R. Joppien and B. Smith, The Art of Captain Cook's Voyages, 3, The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery, New Haven and London, 1988, p.396, 3.143. For two other variants dated 1786 and 1788 respectively, see Joppien and Smith 3.144 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) and 3.145 (Kunstmuseum, Bern, inv.A6436), the latter of similar size. The Bern watercolour is similarly mounted on cardboard with frame lines. There is a squared drawing (Joppien and Smith 3.146) by Webber for his softground etching of the same subject ('A Toopapaoo of a Chief, with a Priest making his offering to the Morai, in Huoheine', 1789, Joppien and Smith 3.146A), the drawing titled by Webber 'Topapao or monument of a Deceased Chief in the Island of Uaheine with a priest making an offering of red feathers to the Eatooah or Deity.', the same subject published by Boydell as a colour aquatint in Webber's Views in the South Seas (London, 1808).

Cook was at Huaheine, one of the Society Islands, from 12 October to 2 November 1777, carrying out one of his written Instructions on the third voyage, to return Omai to his homeland.

We are grateful to Dr William Hauptman for confirming the attribution on the basis of a photograph.