A COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS MADE BY WILLIAM ELLIS ON COOK’S THIRD VOYAGE

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 10, Issue 2, 1 October 1977, Page 5

A COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS MADE BY WILLIAM ELLIS ON COOK’S THIRD VOYAGE

A. A. St. C. M. Murray-Oliver

In 1976 the Alexander Turnbull Library was fortunate to be able to purchase an unique collection of Cook-associated drawings made on the third voyage by William Ellis. This was made possible by a handsome grant through the Hon. Alan Highet (Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of the Arts) from the funds of the Lottery Board of Control and a grant from the Macarthy Trust, augmented by a generous private donation from Mr D. G. Medway of New Plymouth. The balance of the purchase price was provided by the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust Board.

The great research value of this collection of 131 drawings on 49 folios, is amply demonstrated by the following three articles contributed by experts in the fields of scientific history, ethnology and ornithology. The drawings are primarily a working collection, constituting source material for research, rather than exhibition items of pictorial appeal. Nevertheless, several have already been selected by Dr E. H. McCormick for inclusion in the major Omai Exhibition to be presented by the Auckland City Art Gallery in October 1977, on the publication of his monumental work 1 on Omai, the Tahitian who was taken to England by Captain Furneaux on the second voyage and returned home by Cook on the third.

The aesthetic quality of the new drawings—executed in watercolours, pen and wash, ink and pencil—is not comparable with that of the landscapes in the Rex Nan Kivell Collection, Canberra, and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2 nor of the drawings in the British Museum (Natural History). 3 Some, however, do reflect the artist’s undoubted talent e.g. folios 4 ‘South View of Mangia-nooe’ (ink and wash), 8a ‘Trading place at Anamokka or new Rotterdam Isles’ (pencil) and 25, pencil drawing of Tahitan girl (see plates 111, V, I).

The collection as a whole provides great opportunities for further research, not only to art historians studying both Ellis and the 18th century artists of exploration, but also to science historians—as so capably shown by Dr Hoare in his article—and scientists in several disciplines, as well as to ‘pure historians’ if one may venture to use that term. The Turnbull Art Collection 4 is maintained on the principles established by the Library’s founder, in that its holdings are basically of New Zealand and Pacific material of historical or topographical significance. Inevitably it thus makes a strong contribution to art history and certainly contains many examples of considerable artistic merit along with much that is essentially of solely research interest. Thus

the Ellis drawings fit very comfortably indeed into the Library’s accepted policy of art acquisition. The Turnbull collections relating to Captain Cook provide the research worker with the most comprehensive and concentrated facilities of this nature available anywhere in the world. Alexander Turnbull acquired virtually all material published prior to his death in 1918 and his library is particularly strong in pictorial matter, including a great many proof plates (often untitled—a boon to bibliographers if a curse to cataloguers) and the innumerable subsequent issues newly engraved from the original prints. The late J. C. Beaglehole deposited in the Turnbull his extensive holdings of photocopies of all known manuscripts from the three voyages, which he obtained in the course of his editing of Cook’s journals for the Hakluyt Society. 5 Also included are photographs and microfilms of the greater bulk of the paintings and drawings made on the voyages. The Library has continued active collecting in all these areas.

Mr Turnbull took the opportunity of securing any original manuscript Cook items that came his way, but little did and here the Library is regrettably weak despite its great strength in published works. It is an apt coincidence that much of what he gained was of considerable scientific and historical value, like the Ellis drawings; Bayly’s Journal (1773-74) as astronomer on Adventure and his Log (1776-79) and Journal (1777-78) in the same capacity on Discovery; the Log (1768-70) of Lieutenant Hicks on Endeavour; a copy of Banks’s Journal (1768-71) on Endeavour, made for his friend Phipps (Lord Mulgrave) and some minor holograph letters and fragments by Cook, Banks and others. Some years ago the Turnbull and Mitchell libraries joined forces in an attempt to purchase at auction in London the Palliser Hudson logs of the second and third voyages, the last of the various ‘Cook Logs’ in private hands. With no little difficulty £16,000 was amassed, a sum in excess of what Sotheby’s believed could be adequate. In the event, an American buyer paid some £60,000.

In pictorial material the Library’s holdings of original Cook-associated items have been even more lamentably deficient. There is one intriguing sheet of pen and watercolour studies of Pacific artefacts (mostly Hawaiian), of unknown provenance and attribution, but it would seem to have been part of the original Turnbull collection. These studies were first published in 1975. 6 The late Mrs Balcombe-Brown of Wellington donated in 1934 a small sketchbook of delicate watercolour drawings of New Zealand plants. It bears attributions to William Hodges, but some years ago the present writer believed that this could be erroneous and that George Forster was the likely artist. Dr Hoare, pre-eminent authority on the Forsters, father and son, confirms that the drawings may well have a Forster connection although rather perhaps copies

made by his sister than by George himself. Not all agree. The only other item is a large red chalk drawing of ‘A man of Tanna’ (New Hebrides) attributed to Hodges. This was purchased at Christie’s, London, for 500 guineas by the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust in 1973. In 1964 the Library attempted to purchase Parry’s oil of Omai, Banks and Solander. The Endowment Trust contributed £1,500 and donations from Her Excellency Lady Fergusson and others brought the sum available for purchase up to £2,300, estimated as ample by Sotheby’s. But at auction the painting sold for £3,800.

The present collection of Ellis drawings possesses an impeccable provenance. From the 18th century until recent years it was owned by the Astley family, who had been engravers in Liverpool. Further research is necessary to ascertain whether, as seems possible, the Astleys were directly concerned with the plates in the ill-fated account of the voyage written by Ellis. Its existence had been hitherto unknown, even to Professor Beaglehole.

As Dr Hoare points out, it is most surprising that Ellis has been so ignored until the present time, despite his evident calibre as an artist in the few known collections of his work, the well-earned tributes bestowed upon him by Captain Clerke and, in our own times, J. C. Beaglehole and Dr Averil Lysaght, fellow New Zealanders both. So relatively little of his work is known that one can only hope that more may yet appear. Biographical details have been so sparse that all Cook scholars are indebted to Michael Hoare for allowing himself to be diverted briefly from the Forsters to produce his introductory view of Ellis. It is pleasing that his appetite has now been whetted to discover more and perhaps we may hope for a biography of Ellis from him in the future. So much is still conjecture at this point.

Presumably it was the publication of his unauthorised account of the third voyage that militated against greater recognition of Ellis by his contemporaries and those subsequently, coupled withe his sadly early death. An added factor may well have been the wealth of Webber drawings that were drawn upon to illustrate the official account. Every engraver of note in England was employed in preparing the plates but even so publication was delayed until 1784, awaiting completion of the illustrations. The title-page confirms the importance that was placed upon them by the Admiralty: *. . . with a Variety of Portraits of Persons, Views of Places, and Historical Representations of Remarkable Incidents, drawn by Mr Webber during the Voyage, and engraved by the most eminent Artists’. 7

The list of drawings in the Ellis Collection —see pp. 28-37 below—shows the wide coverage of native peoples, their habitat, artefacts and natural history. Geographically, it could not be better —ranging from New Zealand, through the Cook Islands, Tonga, the Society Islands and

the Hawaiian Islands to the North-West American coast and across the North Pacific to the Siberian coast. We could have wished that New Zealand were represented by more than only two items, both of which are early figure drawings—and the artist markedly improved in this genre as the voyage also advanced. But it is the Pacific area which is so particularly important in the scientific discoveries made by Cook and his men.

The great importance of these newly acquired drawings chiefly lies in their all having been drawn ad vivum actually on the voyage, whereas all the Ellis watercolours in other collections are finished studies worked up after the artist had returned to England. The Turnbull collection, moreover, provides much most useful detail formerly unknown, not having been recorded by other artists of the time. Michael Hoare lauds this extension of the graphic legacy of Cook’s voyages; he notes the marked relation between some of the drawings and the plates in Ellis’s book, where the engravings certainly do not do him justice as an artist, and also the interesting comparisons to be made with some of Webber’s work where details are now confirmed by Ellis; 8 and he praises Ellis’s accurate topographical detail in geological illustrations, while at the same time there is an experimental approach in his art.

Janet Davidson confirms that the collection offers further ‘extraordinarily valuable evidence’, particularly because of the artist’s interest in the detail of Pacific canoes, the minor but significant differences from Webber in similar drawings by both men, and the provision of the first recorded view of the Cook Islands. She adds that the figure studies are of great importance to the ethnologist—one supplies missing details of tattooing and others are an important addition to the records by Parkinson and Webber of dancing and costume in Tahiti. David Medway finds this ‘small but important collection’ a valuable supplement to the ornithological drawings in the British Museum (Natural History), especially since no less than 5 of the 14 bird studies record species not included therein.

The Ellis Collection is one of the more significant additions, in the way of scholarly source material, that has been made to the Alexander Turnbull Library in its nearly sixty years of Crown ownership. One must be grateful for the ready and generous co-operation that made possible so noteworthy a purchase. And regret that John Beaglehole cannot share our excitement in this new discovery. No great library can remain static and still be great. A number of worthwhile acquisitions, including this, prove that the Turnbull is certainly a living institution, not resting on its laurels but continuing to grow, the better to fulfil its function as a leading Pacific research library.

NOTES 1 McCormick, E. H. Omai. Auckland, Auckland University Press, 1977. 2 Murray-Oliver, A. A. St. C. M. Captain Cook’s artists in the Pacific 17691779. Christchurch, 1969, plate 109 ‘View up the Valley which goes from Matavai-Bay . . .’ (from the collection in the National Library of Australia); plate 95 ‘View of Adventure Bay, Van Diemens Land . . .’ (from the collection in the National Maritime Museum. Also the same author’s Captain Cook’s Hawaii as seen by his artists. Wellington, 1975, plate 49 ‘View of Kealakekua Bay’ (Public Record Office, London). 3 Murray-Oliver, A. A. St. C. M. Captain Cook’s Hawaii as seen by his artists. Wellington, 1975, plates 54-9, six watercolours of birds, two of fishes (from the collection of the British Museum (Natural History)). 4 The foremost collection of colonial New Zealand art, with some important Pacific and Australian items, totalling over 10,000 paintings and drawings with approximately 12,500 prints. 5 Cook, James. The journals . . . Edited by J. C. Beaglehole. 4 vols and portfolio of charts. Cambridge, 1955-67. 6 Murray-Oliver, Captain Cook’s Hawaii. .., plate 32. 7 Cook, James and James King. A voyage to the Pacific Ocean .. . Performed under the direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore, In His Majesty’s Ships the Resolution and Discovery. In the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 and 1780 . . . 3 vols. and folio of plates. London, 1784. 8 Of particular interest in this respect are folios 1 ‘. . . in Kerguelen’s Land’ (see Dr Hoare’s comments and Plate II), 19a Priest in ceremonial mourning dress, 24 ‘Girl of Otaheite bringing presents’ and 41 ‘A man of Unalaschka’ (see plate VII).