Augustus Earle 141 when their vessel departed without them (fig. 1). He was rescued eight months later by a ship bound for Van Dieman’s Land (later Tasmania), where he arrived in May of 1825. He spent the next several years in Australia, largely in Sydney, though he traveled extensively. The first professional artist to work there, he supported himself primarily by painting portraits, though he continued his own work as well. Here, Aboriginal subjects are prominent and, like his images of South American slaves, many highlight the dispossessed qualities of this population (figs. 5 & 6). Toward the end of his time in Sydney, in October of 1827, Earle traveled to New Zealand, where he spent some seven months, largely in Kororareka on the Bay of Islands, where he was under the protection of a Maori chief he referred to alternately as Shulitea and as King George (better remembered today as Te Whareumu). He found the Maori fascinating and his artistic output during this time is among his most interesting and inspired (figs. 7–12). In May of 1828, he found that the ship that was to carry him back to Sydney had other passengers, two natives of “Tucopea” (Ticopia, the southernmost of the Solomon Islands), whom the captain had transported out of compassion due to famine there. Earle’s portrait of one of these is particularly striking (fig. 13). Earle left Sydney in October of 1828 heading for Madras. He made numerous stops along the way, including the Caroline Islands, the Marianas, Manila, and Singapore. His health failed in India and he made his way back to England via Mauritius, where he was forced to stay for a time when his ship was deemed unseaworthy. After his return to England, he completed an engaging memoir about his time in New Zealand and on Tristan da Cunha,1 before finding a berth as an artist supernumerary for the second voyage of the Beagle in 1831. He became friends with Charles Darwin on this journey, but his health forced him to leave the expedition at Montevideo. He spent his remaining years in London before his death due to “asthma and debility” in December of 1838. He had exhibited at the Royal Academy again in 1837 and 1838 and published a set of lithographs of his New Zealand works in the final year of his life. Earle clearly was an enlightened individual, someone with an uncommon sense for his era of the humanity of oppressed minorities. At the same time, we may infer that he thought highly of himself, not in the least because he was himself a common subject in his own works, generally inserted to provide a sense of social perspective in scenes of brutality or isolation (figs. 1 and 8). In letters, Darwin referred to his “eccentric character” and “open licentiousness,” although it should be remembered that the one man had already traveled the world and the other was just out of college and is not primarily remembered for his sense of humor.2 In the end, Earle should be recognized as an artist of significance, though perhaps of little lasting influence, who deserves to be as well remembered in the Northern Hemisphere as he is in the Southern. NOTES 1. Augustus Earle, A Narrative of Nine Months’ Residence in New Zealand in 1827, Together with a Journal of a Residence in Tristan D’Acunha, an Island Situated Between South America and the Cape of Good Hope, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1832. 2. Charles Darwin in correspondence to his sister, Caroline Darwin, Bay of Islands, New Zealand, December 27, 1835. He is referring to Earle’s harsh critique of missionaries in New Zealand, whom Darwin speaks of in glowing terms. FIG. 12 (left): A New Zealand chief from Terra Naky i.e. Taranaki, 1827(?). Ex Rex Nan Kivell (1898–1977). Watercolor on paper. 21.4 x 17.2 cm. National Library of Australia, Sydney, inv. 2822509. FIG. 13 (above): A Native of the Island of Tucopea i.e. Tikopia, Solomon Islands, 1827(?). Ex Rex Nan Kivell (1898–1977). Watercolor on paper. 24.8 x 22.2 cm. National Library of Australia, Sydney, inv. 2822563.
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