Voyage Pittoresque Autour du Monde. Vol. II

1834-35

Hocken Library: Bliss KX7 Du

Paris: L. Tenré et H. Dupuy

Notebooks and sketch pads were no doubt in constant use by those artists on board the ships exploring the Pacific. It did, after all, supply an endless array of subject matter. Louis Auguste de Sainson, former Admiralty clerk, was the official artist on d’Urville’s Astrolabe, who during the voyage accumulated ‘no fewer than 182 views, landscapes, scenes and pictures; 153 portraits, 112 plates of dwellings, monuments, costumes, arms and utensils, and 45 coastal profiles, sketches of trees, etc.’ (Collins, 1997). The images of early New Zealand in this first edition of <i>Voyage Pittoresque Autour de Monde</i> are based on de Sainson’s drawings.