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1886.1.1259

Piece of barkcloth

1886.1.1259

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Collection type
Object
Description
Piece of barkcloth
Date / Period
Date made: Before 1771
Date collected
1768-1771
Acquisition information
Transferred: 19/04/1886
Materials and processes
Material Bark Fibre Plant, Material Bark Cloth Textile Plant, Process Beaten
Dimensions
Width: max 368 mm, Length: max 440 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1886.1.1259 Other numbers: 1259
Research and responses

Apparently obtained in the South Pacific during James Cook's first voyage of discovery in 1768-1771 and subsequently presented to the University of Oxford (Ashmolean Museum). Transferred to the PRM in 1886. According to Peter Gathercole there is no reason to doubt the documentation which states this fragment of barkcloth was collected on Cook's 1st voyage. Peter also believes that the two samples may have been acquired in Batavia, Java, Indonesia. [NMM 26/2/97; JC 11 10 2012]

Listed on page 468 of 'Appendix A: Catalogue of Society Island Objects with Secure Eighteenth-Century Provenance' in 'Shaping the Body Politic: Gender, Status, and Power in the Art of Eighteenth-Century Tahiti and the Society Islands', by Anne Elizabeth D'Alleva (New York: Columbia University, Ph.D. thesis, 1997). D'Alleva describes it as follows: 'Thick, felted, off-white bark cloth, one red edge. One side shows beater mark 5 lines/cm, the other 8 lines/cm.' [JP 31/7/2002]

Search terms: Barkcloth

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