1778 Watercolour by John Webber of the interior of a house in Nootka Sound. Source: State Library of New South Wales. Click for original.
A few days ago I posted a beautiful watercolour of Nootka Sound by John Webber, artist on Cook’s third voyage. In the ensuing discussion, it was brought up how nice it would be to see the original watercolours of more of his paintings, which often formed the basis for the numerous engraved reproductions which are what one normally sees. The loss of information in moving from the original to the engraving is something of an unknown quantity, and I for one had never seen the watercolours. Until yesterday!
Northwest Coast Archaeology 