Mangeao [Litsea calicaris]

Artist or Author: Joseph Banks

Work: Banks' Florilegium

Date of Publication: 1980-1990

Style: Originally Hand-colored Engraving by a la Poupee and Watercolor

Paper Size: ~ 22 1/2" by 29"

Condition: The work is in very good to excellent condition overall. There may be a few minor imperfections or fox marks to be expected with age. Please review the image carefully for condition and contact us with any questions.

Description of the work: This stunning, rare engraving is from Alecto's publication of Banks' Florilegium, the first true printing of his work on Captain Cook's voyage using the original copper plates produced between 1771 and 1784. The work was published between 1980 and 1990 in London by Alecto Historical Editions and the British Museum. Only 110 sets were published, with this as part of the 67th.

The originally hand-colored engraving features flora from New Zealand that was drawn after specimens gathered by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Captain James Cook's first voyage on the H.M.S. Endeavor from 1768 to 1771. Joseph Banks supervised the production of the original copperplates from 1771 to 1784 in London. Unfortunately, the plates went unused during Banks's lifetime, and were donated to the British Museum in 1827. A handful of plates were printed in 1900s, but the first complete printing of Banks's work was not published until this work. (McDonald, 2017) The engravings were colored using the a la poupee process with hand-applied watercolor.

Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) was a British botanist who traveled on Captain James Cook's first voyage. Along with Daniel Solander, the two men gathered over 1000 new species, increasing the known flora of the world by 25 percent.

Cook's first voyage of three, taking place between 1768 and 1771, was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the South Pacific aboard the HMS Endeavour. Departing from the Plymouth Dockyard in August 1768, the expedition crossed the Atlantic and reached Tahiti in time to observe the transit of Venus before setting off into the largely uncharted ocean to the south. In 1769, the crew reach New Zealand, and spent six months charting the coast before resuming their journey westward. In 1770 the crew became the first Europeans to reach the east coast of Australia before rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1771 and returning to England the summer of that year.

"The famous accounts of Captain Cook's three voyages form the basis for any collection of Pacific books. In three great voyages Cook did more to clarify the geographical knowledge of the southern hemisphere than all his predecessors had done together. He was really the first scientific navigator and his voyages made great contributions to many fields of knowledge." (Hill)

"Cook earned his place in history by opening up the Pacific to western civilization and by the foundation of British Australia. The world was given for the first time an essentially complete knowledge of the Pacific Ocean and Australia, and Cook proved once and for all that there was no great southern continent, as had always been believed. He also suggested the existence of antarctic land in the southern ice ring, a fact which was not proved until the explorations of the nineteenth century." (Printing and the Mind of Man p.135)

Provenance: From the Estate of Elaine and James D. Wolfensohn