Uomai, nativo di Ulaietea condotto in Inghilterra nell' anno 1774 da Tobia Furneaux, Gentiluomo Inglese. / Omai, natif d'Ulaietea Conduit en Angleterre dans l'an 1774 par Tobie Furneaux, Gentilhomme Anglois.

Full portrait of an Omai, a Native of Ulaietea, was brought into England in 1774 by Tobias Furneaux. Probably based on a drawing by Nathaniel Dance Holland (1734-1811).
A rare engraving from "Raccolata di stampe ... di varie nazioni".
From the original drawing by William Hodges, who accompanied Cook. By Teodoro Viero (1740 - 1819), engraver and publisher in Venice.

Omai, a young South Sea Islander, charmed the officers of the Discovery and the Adventure when they were anchored off the island of Huahine in August 1773, during Captain Cook's second voyage to Australasia. He accepted the proposal of Captain Furneaux, James Cook's second in command, that he should go back to England with them.
During the voyage, he was taught English by Lieutenant Burney, brother of the novelist Fanny Burney.
They were met at Portsmouth by the First Lord of the Admiralty and by Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society. This portrait was drawn by Nathaniel Dance soon after Omai arrived in England and engraved in the fashionable new dotted manner and published by Francesco Bartolozzi. Omai arrived in England when people from parts of the world that were considered untainted by modern European civilization were thought to embody the natural character and primitive nobility of mankind. For two years, Omai was feted by English Society as a remarkably handsome and civilized 'noble savage.' He then took up Captain Cook's offer of a return voyage to his Pacific home.
A rare engraving from "Raccolata di stampe ... di varie nazioni". From the original drawing by William Hodges, who accompanied Cook. By Teodoro Viero (1740 - 1819), engraver and publisher in Venice.
From a series of historically significant eighteenth-century copper plate engravings by Venetian engraver Theodoro Viero (1740–1819). Dating from 1783–90, the engraved print on laid paper is among the earliest European representations of indigenous Pacific peoples and depict inhabitants of New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tierra del Fuego.
Born in Bassano, Italy, Theodoro Viero studied under Venetian engraver Niccolò Cavalli, before settling in Venice and establishing his business as a miniaturist, burin engraver and print publisher. While publishing many plates by other printmakers, his own output included reproductions of works by Venetian masters, including Canaletto, Tiepolo, and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.
Published just a few years after Captain James Cook’s voyages to the South Seas, Viero’s prints owe much to William Hodges, the artist aboard Cook’s second Pacific voyage of 1772–75, and the engraved versions of Hodges’ drawings published in 1777 in Cook’s “A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World. . . “. However, while Hodges’ figures were mostly head and shoulder studies, Viero fleshed out this source material to create standing or seated semi-classical figures, posed within a variety of Arcadian settings.
Faces and costume details of Viero’s figures, together with details of their settings, link directly to those in the Cook voyage illustrations.
Produced during the last days of the 1100-year-old independent Venetian Republic (before being conquered by Napoleon in 1797), the presence in this folio of images of the Doge and Dogaressa suggests that “Raccolta di … stampe” was at least a partial tribute to Venice’s rulers, at that time still living symbols of Venetian power and wealth, their palazzo filled with treasures from the farthest corners of the globe.