View of Oaitepeha Bay, Tahiti, 1776 (oil on canvas)

Oil painting on canvas, View of Oaitepeha Bay, Tahiti, by William Hodges RA (London 1744 - Brixham 1797), signed and dated: Hodges 76[1776]. The background of picture is dominated by towering mountain peaks; river in foreground, broken by a stone causeway, with a naked female bather in the water floating on her back and on the right, another naked female bather, seated with her back to the spectator, drying herself with a large white towel and displaying her tattooed bottom, the river winds through a wooded area of land where there is a native hut, and a carving of a ‘tii’ or ancestral image on the far right foreground which is shown seated in a high-backed chair or throne (this is based on the figures which are found on the prows of certain Tahitian boats); on the bank between the two figures are three tall coconut palms. In the distance on the far right behind the ancestral image is a toupapow; or elevated platform, bearing a shrouded corpse. The bathers are painted as white-skinned to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of the time. Another version is in the Ministry of Defence Art Collection, Whitehall, London and its companion (Tahitian War Galleys in Matavai Bay, Tahiti) is in the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art. Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)