• Title
  Une Vue et une Scène de l’Observatoire de Rawak, sketch attributed to Alphonse Pellion
• Creator
  Alphonse Pellion
• Call number
  SSV/203
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  approximately December 1818
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Drawings
• Reference code
  9668530
• Physical Description
  1 drawing - pencil and ink - 24 x 35 cm
  
• ADMINISTRATIVE/ BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
  
  Alphonse Pellion (1796-1868) was a midshipman on board the French vessel L'Uraine, commanded by Louis de Freycinet, during its round the world voyage between 1817 and 1820. Pellion was recognised as an excellent naval draftsman who frequently assisted the official artists Jacques Arago and Adrien Aimé Taunay. Many of his original drawings were later engraved for the official account of the voyage, Atlas Historique (1825).
  
  In mid-December 1818, the Uranie anchored off the coast of the island of Rawak (now Rauki), in western Papua, remaining there for some three weeks.
  
  References:
  'Pencil sketch of houses built on stilts'. Australian National Maritime Museum. Accessed 15 November 2022. https://collections.sea.museum/collections
  Vendor catalogue
  
• Collection history
  Acquired by the vendor from New York. The work was held by a New York collector, who had a broad south-east Asian collection, until about 2018 or 2019. The work does not seem to have come from the Freycinet dispersal, at Christie's or otherwise (information supplied by vendor)
• Scope and Content
  The sketch depicts huts built on stilts and French and local Papuan men on the shore. Freycinet’s officer in the foreground is shown having returned from a private expedition, grasping a large bird in one hand, and his gun over the other shoulder. A Frenchman leans on his long net watching a fire being started and another is seated with a catch of fish strung on his paddle. Behind them, in the ship’s boat, three men share a bottle. Scattered on the shore is a group of tools left behind by the shore parties. Included at the upper right is the Uranie, surrounded by three small boats in the water.
  
  The sketch relates to two published engravings in the Atlas Historique: Iles des Papous: Maison sur Pilotis (no. 48), by Arago, and Vue de mouillage de l’Uranie sur l’île Rawak’ (no. 45), after Pellion - the reciprocal image with the Uranie in the foreground and the small huts on the shoreline just visible at the edge of the bay, the tents of the observatory clearly behind them.
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright:
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Ink inscription below image, 'Une Vue et une Scène de l’Observatoire de Rawak' (translation, 'A view and scene from the Rawak observatory)
• Attributions / conjectures
  
  Attributed to Alphonse Pellion based on the depiction of the most prominent of the standing Papuan men, who wears an elaborate ornament in his hair and a belt slung over his shoulder. His depiction can be recognised as the same small portrait by Pellion, engraved for Atlas Historique (1825) as one of a series of nine ‘divers portraits’ of men and women of Rawak, middle left (plate 43).
• Date note
  
  Date based on the time 'Uranie' was anchored off Rawak
• Subject
  Explorers--France.
  Voyages and travels--19th century.
  Uranie (Corvette)
  Midshipmen.
  
• Place
  Papua Barat (Indonesia)
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE21136543

View Media Files

1.

Show more