Homme & femme de l’Isle de Pâques

Copperplate engraving, original hand colouring, 156 x 112 mm (plate line) dated 1801, with accompanying letterpress description titled Habitans de l’Isle de Pâques

Fine copperplate of a romanticised depiction of the people of Easter Island, extracted from Grasset de Saint-Sauveur’s Voyages pittoresques dans les quatre parties du monde (Paris : Chez Madame veuve Hocquart, 1801).

The first volume is dedicated to the various peoples of Europe, the second to the peoples of Asia, Africa, the Americas and the ‘Sauvages de la Mer du Sud’. An index at the end of each volume lists all of the plates. The South Seas section includes the inhabitants of the Marquesas, Sainte-Christine, Tanna, New Zealand, Easter Island, Tahiti, Hawaii and the Pelew Islands; the Americas sections include Martinique and the Antilles, Canada, Virginia, California, Guiana, Peru, Tierra del Fuego and the Amazon; and the Asian section includes Goa, China, Korea, Japan, Cochin China, Achem, Pegu, Java, Mindanao, Amboyne, Ceylon, Manila and the Moluccas