A Man of Nootka Sound, ca. 1778

Artist: Webber, John (1750/1752-1793)

Medium: black and red chalk with pencil, grey wash and pen and black ink on laid paper.
Dimensions: 45.6 x 30.8 cm (sheet)

Captain James Cook's (Cat. no. 18) third voyage of exploration, begun in 1776, eventually took him to Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island where he arrived in March 1778. The expedition stopped for almost a month taking on supplies fo water and wood and making repairs to the two ships. Here Cook and his crew were greeted by the native people with whom they traded and socialized. John Webber, the expediton artist, made several drawings during the expedition recording the activities and artifacts of the native people, as well as making some portrait sketches which are among the first European portraits done of native peoples of the Canadian west coast. Based on one of these field sketches, this large and hghly finished drawing of a Nootka man was likely done after the artist returned to England.

While the name of the Nootka man is not recorded, Webber provides us with an obfective and sensitive rendering which expresses the man's individuality, as well as faithfully representing this clothing and face painting.

National Archives of Canada, negative no. C-013415