Ethnographical album of the Pacific Islands. Third series.

[Portfolio cover title]. Also titled: An album of the weapons, tools, ornaments, articles of dress &c. of the natives of the Pacific islands. Drawn and described from examples in public & private collections in Australasia by James Edge-Partington. Third series. [London] : Issued for private circulation by James Edge-Partington & Charles Heape, 1898. “Lithographed by Palmer, Howe & Co., Manchester”. Edition limited to 175 copies (this copy is no.123). Oblong folio, [xii], 225 sheets, lithographed recto only, illustrated; includes Australia (leaves 95-146) and New Zealand (leaves 147-225); first couple of leaves foxed, otherwise clean and bright throughout; housed in the original blue and black portfolio box with working brass clasp, pictorial title label to lid; a fine example. With all the ‘Additional notes’ for all three volumes, dated 1899, not always present.

The third of the three magnificent ethnographical albums produced by British ethnologist Edge-Partington between 1890 and 1898, this portfolio contains illustrated plates of artefacts from Tahiti, the Hawaiian Islands, the Marquesas, the Fijian Islands, the Solomon Islands, New Britain, New Ireland, the Admiralty Islands, Micronesia, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand.

After well over a century, Edge-Partington’s accurate line drawings remain highly valued by scholars and art connoisseurs alike. The objects were sketched first-hand by him during his tour of the major Australian and New Zealand public collections of ethnographic material. The collections of the Australian Museum, the Queensland Museum, the South Australian Museum, the Auckland Museum, and the Bishop Museum are all strongly represented. Edge-Partington also sourced important pieces from private collections, including those of Browne (Melbourne), Black (Sydney), Turnbull (Wellington), and Hocken (Dunedin). The drawings in the section on Central Australia were produced from objects and photographs provided by Baldwin Spencer, and the publication of these illustrations actually preceded Spencer and Gillen’s own publication of this material.

Edge-Partington himself was a major collector of ethnographic artefacts, and on his death his collection was divided between the British Museum, the Australian Museum and the Auckland Museum.

A set of the three series (in four albums) of Edge-Partington’s Ethnographical album was sold at auction in 2011 at Sotheby’s, Paris, for 28,350 EUR (ARTS D’AFRIQUE ET D’OCÉANIE, 14 December 2011. Lot 75).

Provenance : Leo Tavares collection, Kula, Maui, Hawaii