1790 VIERO, T. - Uomo dell' Isola di Tanna, una delle nuove Ebridi nel Mar Pacifico. / Homme de l' Isle de Tanna, une des nouvelles Hébrides dans la Mer du Pacifique. [Vanuatu]

Full portrait of a man from the island of Tanna in the Pacific. New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean that is now Vanuatu.
A rare engraving from "Raccolata di stampe ... di varie nazioni". From the original drawing by William Hodges, who accompanied Cook. By Teodoro Viero (1740 - 1819), engraver and publisher in Venice.

From a series of historically significant eighteenth-century copper plate engravings by Venetian engraver Theodoro Viero (1740-1819). Dating from 1783-90, the engraved print on laid paper is among the earliest European representations of indigenous Pacific peoples. It depicts inhabitants of New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tierra del Fuego.

Born in Bassano, Italy, Theodoro Viero studied under Venetian engraver Niccolò Cavalli, before settling in Venice and establishing his business as a miniaturist, burin engraver and print publisher. While publishing many plates by other printmakers, his own output included reproductions of works by Venetian masters, including Canaletto, Tiepolo, and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.

Published just a few years after Captain James Cook's voyages to the South Seas, Viero's prints owe much to William Hodges, the artist aboard Cook's second Pacific voyage of 1772-75, and the engraved versions of Hodges' drawings published in 1777 in Cook's "A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World. . . ". However, while Hodges' figures mainly were head and shoulder studies, Viero fleshed out this source material to create standing or seated semi-classical figures, posed within various Arcadian settings.

Viero's figures ' faces and costume details, together with details of their settings, link directly to those in the Cook voyage illustrations.
Produced during the last days of the 1100-year-old independent Venetian Republic (before being conquered by Napoleon in 1797), the presence in this folio of images of the Doge and Dogaressa suggests that "Raccolta di stampe" was at least a partial tribute to Venice's rulers, at that time still living symbols of Venetian power and wealth, their palazzo filled with treasures from the farthest corners of the globe.