View in the Island of Pines.

Title

View in the Island of Pines.

Description

View of a bay on Pine Island in New Caledonia. Engraved by W. Byrne, edited by Strahan.

c. 1777

Artist

Hodges (1744-1797)

William Hodges (1744- 1797 ) was an English painter. Hodges accompanied Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution on his second voyage to the South Seas, including Tahiti, the Tonga Islands, New Zealand, Easter Island and Antarctica. During his stay on board Hodges mainly made landscape sketches, but also some portraits of expedition members as well as special personalities of the visited islands. His landscape paintings usually also include elements showing the way of life of the people visited. His sketches were further worked on after his return to London, Hodges obtained employment for some time with the Admiralty, which allowed him to produce oil paintings from the sketches and to supervise the production of engravings of the same. Hodges' pictures illustrate as engravings in large quantity the later published travel descriptions of James Cook.

Historical Description

The settlement of New Caledonia probably took place around 1500 BC by people of the Lapita culture. The descendants of these tribes today form the indigenous people of the Kanaks. In the period from the 11th century to the 18th century, Polynesians repeatedly reached the islands of New Caledonia, as they were in search of new land. The islands were discovered by the Europeans only in the course of the 18th century. In 1774, during his second voyage to the South Seas, James Cook became the first European to set foot on the islands. He gave them their present name because the appearance of the northeast of the main island reminded him of Scotland, which had been called Caledonia by the Romans. Cook explored the island landscape over nine days without any incidents. He was followed in 1792 by a Frenchman named Joseph Bruny d'Entrecasteaux. The first Europeans to settle on the islands were whalers and timber (sandalwood) traders. They were followed by missionaries in the 19th century.