''The Death of Captain James Cook, 14 February 1779'' is a painting by
Johann Zoffany
Johan Joseph Zoffany (born Johannes Josephus Zaufallij; 13 March 1733 – 11 November 1810) was a German neoclassical painter who was active mainly in England, Italy and India. His works appear in many prominent British collections, includin ...
. The painting records the loss of the British explorer
Captain James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...
. The painting was made in around 1794 or 1795, some years after the death of Cook in 1779. Other paintings of
the death of Cook were painted earlier. The
Mahiole
Hawaiian feather helmets, known as ''mahiole'' in the Hawaiian language, were worn with feather cloaks (ʻahu ʻula). These were symbols of the highest rank reserved for the men of the ''alii'', the chiefly class of Hawaii. There are examples of ...
(Feathered Helmet) that was included in the painting of Cook's death by Zoffany is said to be the helmet given to Cook when he first landed in Hawaii.
[
]
Painting's construction
The painting is unfinished. Zoffany is thought to have based the painting on another made of Cook's death by John Webber
John Webber (6 October 1751 – 29 May 1793) was an English artist who accompanied Captain Cook on his third Pacific expedition. He is best known for his images of Australasia, Hawaii and Alaska.
Biography
Webber was born in London, educated ...
who was the official artist on Cook's third voyage. Zoffany had been invited at one time to be an artist on one of Cook's voyages and it is thought that he may have previously painted Cook. Webber had not witnessed the death of Cook, but he would have known many of the people involved. He would have known the English sailors but he would also have seen many of the natives. When Cook and his men visited Hawaii for the second time they spent some time on the main island of Hawaii where he had been received many gifts from the Hawaiian Chief including a feather cape and feathered helmet
Hawaiian feather helmets, known as ''mahiole'' in the Hawaiian language, were worn with feather cloaks (ʻahu ʻula). These were symbols of the highest rank reserved for the men of the ''alii'', the chiefly class of Hawaii. There are examples of ...
. Cook had been killed when he returned to Hawaii only two weeks after his second visit. His unplanned return to the island was due to a storm. Cook angered the native people by attempting to take the local chief, Kalaniʻōpuʻu
Kalaniōpuu-a-Kaiamamao (c. 1729 – April 1782) was the aliʻi nui (supreme monarch) of the island of Hawaiʻi. He was called ''Terreeoboo, King of Owhyhee'' by James Cook and other Europeans. His name has also been written as Kaleiopuu.
Bio ...
, as a hostage in order to get a missing boat returned. In the confusion, Cook shot a man and in the aftermath he and four marines were speared to death; the death appears unintended. Cook's replacement, Captain Clerke, was able to very quickly reestablish a relationship with the Hawaiians, and they left with little ill will.
Besides Webber's painting, Zoffany also took poses from Benjamin West
Benjamin West, (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as '' The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the '' Treaty of Paris'', and '' Benjamin Franklin Drawin ...
's ''The Death of General Wolfe
''The Death of General Wolfe'' is a 1770 painting by Anglo-American artist Benjamin West, commemorating the 1759 Battle of Quebec, where General James Wolfe died at the moment of victory. The painting, containing vivid suggestions of martyrdom, ...
''. The native figure is based on the classical sculpture of the Discobolus
The ''Discobolus'' of Myron ("discus thrower", el, Δισκοβόλος, ''Diskobólos'') is an Ancient Greek sculpture completed at the start of the Classical period at around 460–450 BC. The sculpture depicts a youthful male athlete thro ...
which Zoffany knew well, and included in his painting '' Charles Townley in the Park St. Gallery''. Cook's pose derives from the ''Dying Gaul
Dying is the final stage of life which will eventually lead to death. Diagnosing dying is a complex process of clinical decision-making, and most practice checklists facilitating this diagnosis are based on cancer diagnoses.
Signs of dying ...
'', another very famous classical statue.[ The Hawaiian helmet that was included in the painting had been borrowed from a London museum and had belonged to Cook. It was the helmet given to Cook by a Hawaiian chief on his first visit to Hawaii in 1778.][ The helmet is also reminiscent of a crested ]Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
helmet.[
]
History
Johann Zoffany was a German-born painter who had become a successful portrait painter in London. Among his principal patrons were the royal family. Queen Charlotte
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was Queen of Great Britain and of Ireland as the wife of King George III from their marriage on 8 September 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms ...
had sent Zoffany to Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
where he had agreed to paint the ''Tribuna of the Uffizi
The Tribuna of the Uffizi is an octagonal room in the Uffizi gallery, Florence, Italy. Designed by Bernardo Buontalenti for Francesco I de' Medici in 1584, the most important antiquities and High Renaissance and Bolognese paintings from the Medic ...
''.[Tribuna of the Uffizi]
Royal Collection, accessed April 2010 Zoffany stayed seven years and the resulting painting was not well received.
Zoffany had to leave the country and he never again got a royal commission.[ He had hoped to sail with ]Captain Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
, but as a second choice he elected to make the long journey to Lucknow
Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division ...
where he painted the life in colonial India.[Indian Life and Landscapes by Western Artists]
, Pauline Rohatgi ''et al.'', Chapter 4, accessed April 2010. Whilst Zoffany was in India he worked with William Hodges
William Hodges RA (28 October 1744 – 6 March 1797) was an English painter. He was a member of James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific Ocean and is best known for the sketches and paintings of locations he visited on that voyage, inclu ...
. The construction of this painting is said to be based on a sketch by Hodges.
Zoffany went to see a play at Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
concerning the death of Captain Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
who had been killed in Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
on his third voyage to find the North-West Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arct ...
in 1779.[The death of Captain James Cook, 14 February 1779](_blank)
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, accessed 1 September 2020 This is thought to have inspired him to paint the death of Cook at the hand of the Hawaiian natives. Cook had been given a mahiole
Hawaiian feather helmets, known as ''mahiole'' in the Hawaiian language, were worn with feather cloaks (ʻahu ʻula). These were symbols of the highest rank reserved for the men of the ''alii'', the chiefly class of Hawaii. There are examples of ...
(feathered helmet) and a feather cloak
Feather cloaks have been used by several cultures.
Hawaii
Elaborate feather cloaks called '' ʻahuʻula'' were created by early Hawaiians for the '' alii'' (royalty).
Feathers were also used in women's skirts called ''pāū''.
The ''iiwi ...
which was given to the Leverian Museum
The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up ...
. Zoffany borrowed these as props for the construction of the painting which was not intended to be accurate and included poses that were taken from classic statues. This helmet remained in Sir Ashton Lever
Sir Ashton Lever Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 March 1729 – 28 January 1788) was an England, English collector of natural objects, in particular the Leverian collection.[Leicester Square
Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...]
. The feathered helmet that had been given to Cook and included in this painting is now in a museum in Vienna.
When Cook visited Hawaii for the first time in January 1778. Cook was received by high chief Kalaniʻōpuʻu
Kalaniōpuu-a-Kaiamamao (c. 1729 – April 1782) was the aliʻi nui (supreme monarch) of the island of Hawaiʻi. He was called ''Terreeoboo, King of Owhyhee'' by James Cook and other Europeans. His name has also been written as Kaleiopuu.
Bio ...
. Kalaniʻōpuʻu had with him six feather cloaks and a helmet. At the end of the meeting Cook was given the helmet and cloak that Kalaniʻōpuʻu had been wearing. On the expedition's return much of Cook's collection was exhibited in the Leverian Museum
The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up ...
.[To attempt some new discoveries in that vast unknown tract]
Adrienne Kaeppler
Adrienne Lois Kaeppler (July 26, 1935 – March 5, 2022) was an American anthropologist, curator of oceanic ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. She served as the President of the ...
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington DC.
Cook’s Pacific Encounters symposium, National Museum of Australia, 28 July 2006 Lever's collection was then disposed of by public lottery, was obtained by James Parkinson
James Parkinson (11 April 175521 December 1824) was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist and political activist. He is best known for his 1817 work ''An Essay on the Shaking Palsy'', in which he was the first to describe ...
, and was exhibited in the Blackfriars Rotunda
The Blackfriars Rotunda was a building in Southwark, near the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge across the River Thames in London, that existed from 1787 to 1958 in various forms. It initially housed the collection of the Leverian Museum after it ...
. He eventually sold this collection in 7,000 separate lots, in 1806. The British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
failed to bid on these items as Sir Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James ...
had advised them that there was nothing of value.[ Many items were purchased by Baron Leopold von Fichtel for the museum in Vienna.][ The Ibis, Series 3, Volume 3, Osbert Salvin, 1873, accessed 29 August 2010]
Provenance
Zoffany's painting was obtained in its unfinished state by Cook's widow. When she died in 1835 the painting was not mentioned specifically and it was left to John Leach Bennet who gave it to Greenwich Hospital. The painting is now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United ...
in Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
, London.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Death of Captain James Cook, The
1790s paintings
Paintings in the collection of Royal Museums Greenwich
Cultural depictions of James Cook
Paintings about death
Paintings of people
Paintings by Johann Zoffany