“Portrait of a New Zealand Man”
Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish artist who was hired to work on James Cook’s famed voyage to the south pacific aboard the ship, Endeavor. He was to document what he saw with his art. He never made it back home.
“Portrait of a New Zealand Man” is an ink and ink wash on paper painting by the Scottish artist, Sydney Parkinson. This was drawn sometime between 1769 and 1770 during Cook’s voyage to the Pacific on Endeavor. Parkinson drew a large number of sketches during this voyage. He was the first to depict the indigenous Māori of New Zealand from direct observation. His drawings were detailed and included the tattooing and ornamental practice of the Māori warriors.
There are two conflicting histories of this piece. The first being that it was drawn while anchored in Queen Charlotte Sound (Tōtaranui), on the northern edge of New Zealand’s South Island. The other story is that Parkinson drew this while his ship was anchored in the Bay of Islands in the very northeastern part of New Zealand’s North Island. In this version, it is a portrait of Otegoowgoow, the son of a local Māori chief. The crew had met Otegoowgoow on December 3, 1769. Just a few weeks later on December 29, there was an altercation and the chief’s son was shot and wounded.
In reproductions, this piece is often referred to as “The head of a New Zealander, with a comb in his hair, an ornament of green stone in his ear, and another of a fish’s tooth round his neck”. In 1773, some of Parkinson’s drawings, including this one, were engraved and included in John Hawkesworth’s lengthy titled book, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of his Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq.
In addition to recording the journey visually, Parkinson helped in other ways. He compiled a list of indigenous vocabulary. He also kept a detailed journal with a wealth of information. In his journal, Parkinson wrote:
The Māori “had their hair tied up on the crown of their heads in a knot . . . Their faces were tataowed, or marked either all over, or on one side, in a very curious manner, some of them in fine spiral directions like a volute being indented in the skin very different from the rest.”
“Portrait of a New Zealand Man” is in the collections of the British Library in London, England.
For more on Sydney Parkinson, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
