John Webber, R.A. 1750-1793

Anonymous sale in these Rooms, 14th December 2000, lot 40

The present watercolour is one of the earliest views of Vietnam painted by a European artist and dates from Webber's voyage with Captain Cook in 1780. Another study of the island by Webber is now in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (see William Hauptman, Captain Cook's Painter: John Webber, 1996, p.167, no.27a, ill.).

Webber replaced William Hodges as official draughtsman on Captain James Cook's third and last voyage to the South seas from 1776 to 1780. After Cook's death on 14th February 1779 the command of the expedition was undertaken by Captain King. He attempted a further search for the north-west passage, this time from the Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia which the party reached in April 1779. When it was decided that the passage could not be found the party decided to abandon hope and return to England, sailing past the Kurile Islands and the Japanese coast toward Macao where they stayed until mid January 1780. The official work for the expedition ceased while in Macao, but Webber continued drawing as illustrated by the present watercolour taken at Pulo Condore. The crew stayed at Pulo Condore for a week before travelling to the island of Crakatoa in the Sunda Straits where they remained until mid February 1780.

During the four years Webber was on the expedition he produced more than two hundred studies which recorded the full breadth of Cook's third voyage.

Back in England he worked up his sketches for the Admiralty's account of the expedition, published in 1784. Between 1787 and 1792, he engraved and published sixteen Pacific and East Indies views, in the soft ground etched edition. After his death, a new edition with text was published by Boydell in 1808, under the title Views in the South Seas from Drawings by the late James (sic) Webber, Draftsman on Board the Resolution, Captain James Cooke, from the Year 1776-1780. Many of his studies were later embellished and executed as oil paintings which he continued to show in the annual Royal Academy exhibitions until his death