John Webber (1751–1793) - Masked Man of the Sandwich Islands / Homme Masqué de l'Isle Sandwich

This engraving presents an ethnographic portrait of a native Hawaiian man wearing a traditional ceremonial gourd mask adorned with woven fibres and foliage, published in 1784 as part of the official illustrated account of Captain James Cook's third Pacific voyage, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The composition documents with careful precision the ritual regalia and cultural artefacts observed during the expedition's visits to the Sandwich Islands in 1778 and 1779 — objects that fascinated European observers and were systematically recorded by Webber as part of the voyage's comprehensive visual programme. The gourd mask, worn during certain Hawaiian ceremonial and ritual contexts, is rendered with the ethnographic detail characteristic of Webber's draughtsmanship, contributing to what remains one of the most important visual archives of pre-contact Hawaiian culture.

John Webber (1751–1793) was a celebrated English landscape artist and draughtsman who served as the official expeditionary artist on Cook's third voyage (1776–1780). Tasked with creating a comprehensive visual record of the peoples, places, and natural history encountered across the Pacific, he produced an extraordinary body of work that remains among the most significant visual documents of eighteenth-century exploration. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, published in London in 1784, drew on Webber's drawings for its seventy-eight engraved plates, produced by a team of the finest London engravers of the period.

Artist or Maker: John Webber

Dimensions: 27 × 22 cm

Medium: Engraving

Date: 1784

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