Format: Art

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Natural environment / Taiao

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Hocken Digital Collections

The Poa. From the bird which was brought from New Zeeland by Capt. Cook, in his late voyage round the world, and which obtained of the Society of Arts, a premium of 30 guineas. Rob.t Laurie del. et fec.t Sold at N.o 1 Johnsons Court, Fleet Street and N.o

Details

Accession Number16,621CreatorLaurie, Robert, 1755?-1836Date1776-1777

Description

Media & Sizecolour mezzotint, hand finished in colour: 355 x 250mm; on paper: 355 x 250mm (rimmed to plates)DescriptionThis print of a tui, drawn from a specimen taken back to England by Captain Cook after his second voyage to New Zealand, was the first ever made using the difficult colour mezzotint process. Only six original copies are known to exist.

Apprenticed to Robert Sayer, a publisher of prints, maps, and charts in Fleet Street from 1770 to 1777, Robert Laurie (1755-1836) was only twenty when he developed a method for colour printing using mezzotint engravings and was awarded 30 guineas for disclosing how it was done. He demonstrated his process to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, engraving outlines on copper, then applying oil colours with camel-hair stump brushes to a warmed plate, wiping with a coarse gauze cloth, then passing the plate through the press. Technically exacting, his process required the creation of separate plates for each colour, passing the same piece of paper through the press several times to print the colours in exact registration.

Called the Poa, or Parson Bird, Laurie’s tui was also the first published illustration of a New Zealand bird, appearing in Peter Brown's New Illustrations of Zoology in 1776, almost a century before colour lithography opened the way for commercial colour printing.ProvenanceAllocation from Hocken Memorial Revenue

Depicts Or Relates To

SubjectsTuiBirds

CollectionNatural environment / Taiao

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The Poa. From the bird which was brought from New Zeeland by Capt. Cook, in his late voyage round the world, and which obtained of the Society of Arts, a premium of 30 guineas. Rob.t Laurie del. et fec.t Sold at N.o 1 Johnsons Court, Fleet Street and N.o

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The Poa. From the bird which was brought from New Zeeland by Capt. Cook, in his late voyage round the world, and which obtained of the Society of Arts, a premium of 30 guineas. Rob.t Laurie del. et fec.t Sold at N.o 1 Johnsons Court, Fleet Street and N.o

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