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Large 4to (350 x 285 mm). 19th century green cloth.
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An exceptional album of 171 original watercolours and drawings made during rear admiral Marcus Lowther’s voyages between 1842 and 1853.
This amazing album covers Lowther’s drawings around the globe during more than 10 years. It contains 57 sketches while in China and Hong Kong in the 1840s, including many Chinese sailing vessels, local people, harbour views, landscapes, and studies of temples; with other studies produced while in Malaysia, including Penang and Malacca; Borneo including Brunei; the Philippines; Chile; Argentina; Peru, including the Chincha Islands and Lima by 1851; then Vancouver Island on HMS Portland with 11 studies of the First Nations people; numerous Pacific Ocean islands including 16 studies while on the Marquesas Islands; three from the “Sandwich Islands”; nine from the Pitcairn Islands, including the house and grave of John Adams (the last survivor of the Bounty mutineers of 1790); seven studies while on Easter Island in 1853; and with many others, manuscript title reads ‘Admiral Marcus Lowther’, 171 drawings, pen and brown inks and watercolours, many with pencil under-drawing, some heightened with white, detailed inscriptions throughout identifying people, locations, with some monogrammed ‘ML’ and dated, a few with navigational coordinates, various sizes, four folding landscapes, the rest neatly pasted onto album leaves, together with 12 cuttings and photos pasted towards the end.
“Marcus Lowther entered the Navy in 1830; passed his examination 8 June, 1838; and after serving as Mate of the Hastings 72, Capt. John Lawrence, on the Mediterranean station, was employed in that capacity, from 1842 until promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 9 Aug. 1844, on board the Agincourt 72, bearing the flag in the East Indies of Sir Thos. John Cochrane. He was then re-appointed to the same ship and continued attached to her until her return to England in 1847. On 19 Aug. 1845 he appears to have had charge of a gun-boat, and to have served with the boats of a squadron, carrying altogether 530 officers, seamen, and marines, at the destruction, under Capt. Chas. Talbot, of the piratical settlement of Malloodoo, on the north end of the island of Borneo, where the British encountered a desperate opposition, and sustained a loss of 6 men killed and 15 wounded. We also, in July, 1846, on the occasion of an expedition conducted by the Admiral against the Sultan of Borneo, find him commanding the third company of small-arm men, and assisting at the capture and destruction of the enemy’s forts and batteries up the river Brune” (A Naval Biographical Dictionary)
Amongst the studies Lowther produced of daily life, there are a number of military events at which he was also present, with drawings of these in the album including: a bird’s-eye plan of Maluda Bay, just before Admiral Thomas Cochrane destroyed a pirate fleet manned by 1000 freebooters, 1845; “The Grand Alligator Battle at Malacca”, July 1845; the forts used during the Capture of Brunei, 1846; and a study of the sailing ship of the Imam of Muscat leaving Penang. The album also contains several other studies of sailing ships, including HMS Portland.
Early drawings of trading posts, everyday life, houses etc. of Hong Kong in the second half of the 19th century
The fine illustrations prove Marcus Lowther to be an accomplished artist. At least sixteen drawings of the collection are depicting scenes in Hong Kong, Kowloon, or its surroundings.
EASTER ISLAND
This remarkable time capsule contains one picture – if not the earliest – of a cultural exchange between the islands’ inhabitants and the european travellers.
During his first expedition into the South Pacific James Cook did not prove to be enthusiastic about the Easter Island where he spent four days in March 1774. He wrote in his diary : “No nation need contend for the honour of the discovery of this island, as there can be few places which afford less convenience for shipping than it does. Here is no safe anchorage, no wood for fuel, nor any fresh water worth taking on board.”
Most likely less than one hundred ships have visited the Easter Island between 1795 and 1862 where provisions were scarce, as one could not get even fresh water. As Cook already explained, some of the finer produce include bananas, sweet potatoes, “which are the best I have ever tasted”. Exchange could be made with tobacco, nails, or other metal tools, in order to trade-in for smaller wooden sculptures or some food.
One of the larger illustrations vividly depicts the arrival of the smaller boat from the “Portland”. The boat is surrounded by natives from the islands bringing live-stock such as tame fouls, or even works of art such as Moai Kavakava. The boat is being entered by several young ladies, of which the body is quite extensively decorated with tattoos. This exchange of goods and meeting of the local people has often been related in travel accounts but, to our knowledge, had never before been depicted in an image or, as is the case in the album, in a detailed watercolour.
The Moai kavakava is a small wooden sculpture emanating of the culture of Rapa Nui on the Easter Island. Each sculpture resembles to a standing man, lightly bent, with a very skinny body and an emaciated rib cage. These sculptures were originally shown during festivities such as harvest or fishing season and could be carried either by hand, or with a lace around the neck.
The watercolors by Admiral Marcus Lowther include two illustrations of Moai kavakava.
Other than the picture of the meeting this album contains a rare, if not the earliest image of a surf-board.
Although it was well known that the inhabitants of the Pacific used to swim with the help of a float prepared of totora or water reed, this album shows a young woman with a surfboard. The travel accounts, especially in the early 19th century, therefore allowed to establish a clear geographical zone where surfing was practiced (Society Islands, Marquesas, Rapa Nui, Cook Islands, Hawaï, Tahiti, and New Zealand). This appears to be the earliest picture showing surfing on the Easter Islands.
Early pictorial information on easter island tattoos
“De long tatouages bleus, d’une bizarrerie et d’un dessin exquis, courent sur leurs jambes et leurs flancs, sans doute pour en accentuer la sveltesse charmante » (January 1872, Pierre Loti, L’Ile de Pâques, La Revue de Paris, 1899, p. 232)
In Polynesia, the tattoo had a fundamentally spiritual connotation and in some cases the tattoo was seen as the recipient of divine force or mana. The priests and the leaders, more tattooed than the rest of the population, affirmed their place within the hierarchy through these symbols as men and women were tattooed with representations that showed their place on the social scale. Very little information about Easter Island tattoos is given to us by navigators of the late 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, a single detailed representation of tattoos is illustrated in The World in Miniature, The South Sea Islands (London, Ackermann, 1824) and many interpretations are drawn from the rare bark sculptures. It was not until Pierre Loti’s voyage that helped to get a better image with the use of notes and illustrations of the tattoos of this isolated island. A sketch from Thomson’s visit to the island on USS Mohican in December 1886 shows the tattoos still present at the end of the 19th century. William Thomson makes it clear that on this visit the practice of tattooing appears to be over and that no young people or children were tattooed, while the older men and women were heavily ornamented with tattoos all over the body.
The traditional tattoo art of Easter Island today is endowed with information that seemed nonexistent. The set of illustrations from February 1853 produced by Rear Admiral Marcus Lowther, nearly twenty years before the drawings by Pierre Loti then observed by the young Viaud during the few days spent on the Easter pile in January 1872 , are of considerable importance to the Polynesian culture of the inhabitants of Rapa Nui.
The long tradition of naval survey and natural history sketches produced by naval officers goes back to Cook’s first voyage, and the practice appears to have been particularly prevalent on HMS Portland [for comparative drawings by John Linton Palmer, also on board HMS Portland with Lowther, see the Royal Geographical Society, J.L. Palmer, Album No. 4, F30/4, RGS-IBG Collections]. While on HMS Portland Lowther undertook numerous intimate studies of the people of the Marquesas Islands and Easter Islands, many of whom are adorned with tattoos and seen interacting with the ship’s crew. While on Vancouver Island, Lowther drew “from nature” portraits of First Nation peoples, including Chief Cheealthluc “King Freezy”, and “King George […] of the Clallam Hathcad Indians”, and the “Chief of Neah Bay,Strait of Juan De Fuca”.
A fascinating album of great ethnological importance covering the extensive voyages of a mid-19th century naval officer, comprehensively documenting both his encounters with remote indigenous communities, and the numerous locations that he travelled through.
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