Whitby's Captain Cook Museum shows watercolour of explorer's third voyage for first time ever

The valuable painting View of Matavai Bay, in the Island of Otaheite, was recently acquired from the Estate of the Dowager Marchioness of Normanby, the museum’s founder.

It depicts Matavai Bay on Tahiti where Cook observed the Transit of Venus and where he returned on both later voyages, a safe anchorage and where Cook was well known to local leaders.

The painting is remarkable not only for the mountain landscape.

On the right in the distance lie the ships Resolution and Discovery.

On the left is a realistic and detailed depiction of the shore encampment - tents, special astronomers’ tents with removable hexagonal panels for the telescopes, a sentry with shouldered musket to guard them, officers and crew milling about and locals trading.

William Ellis (1751-1784) was a crew member as surgeon’s second mate on Captain Cook’s second and third voyages.

He was also a gifted amateur artist and on Cook’s third voyage, assisted the official artist John Webber, recording landscapes and documenting birds and fish.

The museum has four other works by William Ellis, all coastal views, while this is a larger finished watercolour.

It was accepted by HM Government in 2019 in Lieu of Inheritance Tax from the Estate of the Dowager Marchioness of Normanby and, as she wished, allocated to the Captain Cook Memorial Museum.

With reopening following Covid restrictions, it has now been possible to put it on display.

The museum on Grape Lane is now open daily to October 31 and on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays in November.