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Details
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK (1728-1779)
An album, titled in manuscript Specimens Forty-three in number, of The Various Kinds of Cloth, Manufactured by the Natives of the South Sea Islands. Brought Home by one of the Officers who went out under Capt. Cook in 1768, 4° (24 x 17cm.). Title, 43 examples of Tapa (i.e. 21 full-page samples , 22 smaller samples mounted four or six to a leaf on 4 leaves). Early-19th century half calf, flat spine with black morocco label lettered 'Cloth of the South Sea Islands' (worn, upper cover detached). Provenance: unidentified officer aboard the Endeavour (compiler, see title); Thomas Welton (armorial bookplate); Abbey Museum, New Barnet (label).
A FINE AND EXTREMELY RARE COLLECTION OF TAPA Cloth samples. The Endeavour visited the Tuamotu Achipelago, the Society Islands and in particular Tahiti. Hawkesworth notes in his account of the first voyage (vol.II, p.210-216) that the Tahitians "principal manufacture is their cloth, in the making and dying of which I think there are some particulars which may instruct even the artificers of Great Britain ... [It] is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark of ... the Chinese paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and the tree which resembles the wild fig-tree of the West Indies. The finest and whitest is made of the paper mulberry, Aouta; this is chiefly worn by the principal people, and when it is dyed red takes a better colour. A second sort, inferior in whiteness and softness, is made of the bred-fruit tree, Ooroo, and worn chiefly by the inferior people; and a third of the tree that resembles a fig, which is coarse and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper: this ... is the most valuable, because it resists water, which the other two sorts will not. Of this ... the greater part is perfumed, and worn by the Chiefs as a morning dress ... The colours with which they dye this cloth are principally red and yellow ... The red colour is produced by the mixture of the juices of two vegetables ... One is a species of fig called here Matte, and the other the Cordia Sebestina, or Etou; of the fig the fruit is used, and of the Cordia the leaves ... The yellow colour is made of the root of the Morinda citrifolia, called Nono, by scraping and infusing in water."
The cloth excited much interest in England and sample books of the present type were greatly sought after, to the extent that, in 1787, Alexander Shaw published A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth (letterpress title) with 6pp. of text and a varying number of small mounted samples.
Shaw's work is one of the rarest of all the printed items relating to Cook. The present privately compiled collection is rarer still.
An album, titled in manuscript Specimens Forty-three in number, of The Various Kinds of Cloth, Manufactured by the Natives of the South Sea Islands. Brought Home by one of the Officers who went out under Capt. Cook in 1768, 4° (24 x 17cm.). Title, 43 examples of Tapa (i.e. 21 full-page samples , 22 smaller samples mounted four or six to a leaf on 4 leaves). Early-19th century half calf, flat spine with black morocco label lettered 'Cloth of the South Sea Islands' (worn, upper cover detached). Provenance: unidentified officer aboard the Endeavour (compiler, see title); Thomas Welton (armorial bookplate); Abbey Museum, New Barnet (label).
A FINE AND EXTREMELY RARE COLLECTION OF TAPA Cloth samples. The Endeavour visited the Tuamotu Achipelago, the Society Islands and in particular Tahiti. Hawkesworth notes in his account of the first voyage (vol.II, p.210-216) that the Tahitians "principal manufacture is their cloth, in the making and dying of which I think there are some particulars which may instruct even the artificers of Great Britain ... [It] is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark of ... the Chinese paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and the tree which resembles the wild fig-tree of the West Indies. The finest and whitest is made of the paper mulberry, Aouta; this is chiefly worn by the principal people, and when it is dyed red takes a better colour. A second sort, inferior in whiteness and softness, is made of the bred-fruit tree, Ooroo, and worn chiefly by the inferior people; and a third of the tree that resembles a fig, which is coarse and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper: this ... is the most valuable, because it resists water, which the other two sorts will not. Of this ... the greater part is perfumed, and worn by the Chiefs as a morning dress ... The colours with which they dye this cloth are principally red and yellow ... The red colour is produced by the mixture of the juices of two vegetables ... One is a species of fig called here Matte, and the other the Cordia Sebestina, or Etou; of the fig the fruit is used, and of the Cordia the leaves ... The yellow colour is made of the root of the Morinda citrifolia, called Nono, by scraping and infusing in water."
The cloth excited much interest in England and sample books of the present type were greatly sought after, to the extent that, in 1787, Alexander Shaw published A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth (letterpress title) with 6pp. of text and a varying number of small mounted samples.
Shaw's work is one of the rarest of all the printed items relating to Cook. The present privately compiled collection is rarer still.