"Leg of Vaitepu with tattooing", p.31

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

19338

Title

p.31, Leg of Vaitepu with tattooing. The present Queen of Marquesas Island, from sketch

Description

A photograph of a sketch of the leg of Vaitepu, Queen of Marquesas Island, c. 1889. The queen's leg is covered with tattoos and a skirt is draped across one knee. Foliage can be seen in the back ground.

The image is from the photograph album entitled 'The Cruise of the Casco' of Robert Louis Stevenson's travels around Hawaii and French Polynesia in 1888.

Artist / maker

Mrs Hoare

Date

1889

Size

13.9 x 10 cm

Type

Photograph

Location

Writers' Museum

Sophia Hoare was a photographer in Papeete, Tahiti. She was the wife of photographer Charles Burton Hoare, originally from Manchester but emigrated to the South Pacific in 1863. When her husband died in 1879 she took over his photography studio and became a well respected photographer, gaining the title of official photographer to the royal court of Tahiti.

The Marquesas Islands are situated in French Polynesia, in the southern Pacific Ocean. They are volcanic and are named after the Marquis of Cañete, who financially supported the Spanish Explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira who disovered the islands in 1595.

Born in Edinburgh on 13th November 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, playwright and travel writer. Although he was plagued by ill health all his life, he was extraordinarily well-travelled, visiting Europe, America and the South Seas. He married American born Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne in 1880 and is best-known for works like Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (both 1886).

Robert Louis Stevenson spent the latter years of his life both travelling and resident in the Pacific. The family chartered the 'Casco' in San Francisco and spent several weeks travelling in French Polynesia, including an extended stay in Tahiti where Stevenson recovered from a bout of illness. After this the Stevenson group continued to Honolulu, Hawaii, where they landed in January 1889. In the summer of 1889 Stevenson embarked on a six month voyage through the Gilbert Islands to Samoa aboard the 'Equator'. It was here that Stevenson bought an estate he named Vailima. After another voyage, aboard the trading steamer the 'Janet Nicoll', Stevenson returned to Vailima. He died here on the 3rd December 1894 of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 44, leaving what many consider his best work, Weir of Hermiston (1896) unfinished.

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Related subjects

Clothing and dress > Accessories > Tattoos

People > Politics and government > Queens

Places > Oceania > Marquesas Islands

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