A funerary monument (Toupapow) with a corpse on it (Tahiti), after William Hodges. William Woollett (1777)

View of a beach with a body raised on a platform covered with thatched roof to right, with two women beneath, mourning and a chief mourner standing in ceremonial dress to left, beside a palm tree, with a man carrying a spear to left and the sea in the background; illustration to "A Voyage towards the South Pole ... in the years 1772-75". The excellent artists employed for Cooks voyages to record the scenery, people and natural wonders encountered were of the highest caliber and did much to contribute to the lasting value of information gathered during these voyages. Inscription content: Lettered below the image 'Drawn after Nature, by Wm Hodges. / Engrav'd by Wm Wollet' and'Attended by the chief Mourner in his Habit of Ceremony. Published Feby. 1st 1777 by W. Strahan in New Street Shoe Lane & Thos. Cadell in the Strand London'. William Hodges Landscape painter and aquatinter (1744-1797); joined Captain Cook's 2nd expedition on the Resolution to South Pacific as a draughtsman 1772-75; commissioned by the Admiralty to oversee the engraving of plates after his landscapes; in India 1780-84 under patronage of Warren Hastings, publishing his watercolours as large aquatints on return to England, and a narrative of his journey; became Royal Landscape painter to the Prince of Wales; the failure of his Indian views and the loss of money in his one-man show in 1794-5 induced him to retire as artist in 1795 and he became a partner in a Devon bank, but the bank collapsed in 1797 and he went bankrupt to the tune of £4,000; as a result he committed suicide.