Vanikoro Archer, Santa Cruz Islands, Antique Hand-Colored Print, Berghaus, 1854

A man of Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Islands, an original antique hand colored print of 1854, the coloring applied by hand over a printed outline. The caption below the figure reads INBOORLING VAN WANIKORO., meaning Native of Vanikoro; the plate spells the name Wanikoro.

The man stands with his right foot raised on a rock, turned toward the viewer's left. In his right hand he grips a tall bow that reaches from the ground to above his head, and in his left hand he holds a bundle of arrows. He wears a yellow loincloth tied at the waist, banded ornaments of red, white and yellow on his upper arms, wrists and below the knees, and a round gold-colored pendant on a cord at his chest. A white cloth hangs from the back of his head under a wreath of green leaves, and a thin ornament passes through his nose. A small patch of grass and stone forms the ground.

No artist, lithographer or publisher is named on the plate, and there is no plate number above or below the image; the printed caption is the only lettering on the sheet.

The plate comes from the second volume, the Tweede Deel, of De Volken van den Aardbodem, the Dutch edition of Heinrich Berghaus's illustrated work on the peoples of the world, translated from the German by M. J. van Oven and published at Gorinchem by J. Noorduyn en Zoon in 1854. The title page of the volume announces 120 extra fine plates colored after nature. Berghaus was a German geographer, best known for his Physikalischer Atlas. Vanikoro is the island where the ships of the French navigator La Perouse were wrecked in 1788.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along all four edges. Foxing over much of the margin. All four corners read as present in the scan. Several larger brown marks.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.