Today in History: August 8th

 British naval officer Joseph Whidbey led an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska as part of Captain Vancouver’s expedition of the American Pacific Northwest.

A veteran of the American war for Independence, Whidbey was given a peacetime appointment aboard the HMS Europa, where he conducted detailed surveys of Port Royal with then-Lieutenant Vancouver. Once his berth was completed, he was commissioned to the HMS Discovery along with Vancouver.

George Vancouver was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England on June 22, 1757. He began his naval career aboard the HMS Resolution, captained by James Cook. Upon completion of two voyages with Captain Cook, Vancouver was commissioned as a Lieutenant aboard the HMS Martin surveying coast lines. It is this work that would set him apart from his peers. Following the Nootka Crisis - which resulted in skirmishes between the Spanish and the English as both tried to assert their authority over the territory - Captain Vancouver was given command of the Discovery and the Chatham and charged with the task of surveying the Pacific Northwest coastline.

The mission was time-consuming as the ships Discovery and the Chatham were too cumbersome to fit into the lithe channels and inlets along the coastline; instead, small boats were sent in every direction to examine the coast in detail. The Vancouver Voyage lasted four-and-a-half years, circumnavigating the globe, landing in five continents and had a great and lasting affect on the indigenous people it encountered as well as encouraging colonization of the Americas.

 

Captain George Vancouver’s maps were so great in detail that they were used as the key reference in coastal navigation for generations to come. In addition to his contributions to navigational records of the Pacific Northwest, he also contributed many surveys of Australia, Galapagos Islands, Sandwich Islands, Mexico, and Chile.

To recognize Whidbey’s outstanding service, Captain Vancouver named the island that forms the northern boundary of Puget Sound -incidentally named for another navel officer on the Vancouver expedition - Whidbey Island.

 Arader Galleries is proud to offer you a fine selection of Vancouver Expedition survey maps. Please contact the Gallery for more information.

Magnificent hand-colored lithographs of Hawaii and its Native Peoples by Louis Choris

Idoles des Iles Sandwich

Danse des hommes dans les iles Sandwich

Porte d'Hanarourou

Louis (or Ludovik) Choris, a Russian of German extraction, showed a talent for natural history illustration at a remarkably early age, and initially won high praise for his pictorial work on Biberstein's journey to the Caucasus in 1813. His most celebrated publications, however, were the Voyage Pittoresque Autour du Monde and the Vues et Paysages des Regions Equinoxiales. In both of these magnificent works, Choris provided important pictorial representations of the people, landscape, and artifacts of the still-mysterious islands of the Pacific, California, Alaska, the northwest coast of America, and other far-off lands.

Choris had first-hand knowledge of these places, having been the official artist accompanying the Russian expedition around the world led by Otto von Kotzebue, the primary object of which was the search for a Northwest Passage. The voyage took place in 1815-1818 aboard the “Rurik,” which entered the Pacific via the Horn and eventually returned to Europe via the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena. Choris had been invited by the St. Petersburg Academy to accompany Kotzbue, and the two published works which resulted represent a fine cross-section of the places that the expedition visited, specifically including such locales as, Brazil, Chile, the Pacific Islands, Hawaii, Kamchatka, the Philippines, the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena. These works have great American interest because of their early accounts of California, The Hawaiian Islands, the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Aleutians, St. Lawrence Island, and Kotzebue Island in Alaska. .

Louis Choris visited Hawaii in 1816 and illustrated his observations during a critical period in Hawaiian history, just prior to the death of Kamehameha I and the fall of the kapu system. Choris witnessed the Islands just prior to the ensuing chaos from the collapse of the old political and social system. The three weeks that the Russian ship, “Rurik” spent in Hawaiian Waters produced incredible illustrations by Choris, and provide invaluable insight into the people, places and cultural practices of Hawaii. Choris is said to have "painted nature as he found it. The essence of his art is truth; a fresh, vigorous view of life, and originality in portrayal." Thus Choris’ 1822 publication is not only considered to be one of the most beautiful relating to travel, but one of the most accurate.

Please inquire regarding other extraordinary original lithographs from this publication. Arader galleries can be reached by phone at 415.788.5115 or online at www.aradersf.com.