item details
NamePotatow
ProductionJohn Hall; engraver; 1777; London
William Hodges; after; 1773
William Hodges; after; 1773
Classificationprints, engravings, works on paper
Materialsink, paper
Materials Summaryengraving
Techniquesengraving
DimensionsImage: 187mm (width), 233mm (height)
Registration Number1992-0035-1804
Credit lineBequest of Charles Rooking Carter, 1896
Overview
George Forster, one of the scientists on Cook’s second voyage to the Pacific, wrote that the Tahitian chief Patatau was ‘one of the tallest men we had seen upon the island, and his features were so mild, comely, and at the same time majestic, that Mr. Hodges immediately applied himself to copy from them, as from the noblest models of nature’.