Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Plates to Cook's third voyage

Plates to Cook's third voyage

1776–80
Bound volume
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
F78/6

John Webber was the official artist on Captain Cook’s third voyage of discovery between 1776 and 1780. Following the voyage, Webber’s drawings were engraved and printed as the official visual record of the voyage.

This bound set of his plates was carefully selected by the Admiralty and presented to Cook’s widow Elizabeth. Pasted into the front of the volume is a letter from her cousin Isaac Smith to her doctor, Dr Elliotson, sent on 5 May 1821:

'I am desired by Mrs Cook to present her compliments to you, & to request your acceptance of the 4 books sent herewith being her husband’s last voyage around the World, as a mark of her respect for the attention and the great benefit she has experienced from your prescriptions, & she hopes when you give them a place in your library it may remind you of an old patient who will always think herself indebted to you for the kind manner you have attended her through a long illness. The plates are proofs such as could not be bought but were made a present to Mrs Cook by the Lords of the Admiralty, the better proofs of the second edition being much superior to the first.’

In Tahiti Webber produced quick sketches of the local ruler Tu. Tu greatly disliked Webber’s portrait and destroyed it.

Webber was well paid for his work for the voyage. On his return to London he was paid not only the seaman’s pay for the voyage but also a back salary and a stipend to oversee the engraving of a selection of his drawings. He was paid generously every year by the publisher until the completion of the plates some five years later.

Webber was elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1791.

Webber was working as an interior decorator when his artwork, on display at the Royal Academy of Arts, attracted the attention of Dr Daniel Solander, an assistant to Sir Joseph Banks. It is most likely Banks who suggested the idea to Cook of taking an artist on the voyage.