View of the Bay of Islands

Original title: ‘Vue de la baie des îles (Nouvelle-Zélande)’. Lithographed by Isidore-Laurent Deroy. Plate No. 50 from Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville, Voyage de la corvette l’Astrolabe exécuté pendant les années 1826–1827–1828–1829 (Paris: J. Tastu, 1833). Other lithographs from the series can be viewed here.

The following text comes from the catalogue for the exhibition Tirohanga Whānui.

This extensive view of Manawaora Bay looks down from a hill at the southern end of the bay, along the foreshore and out towards the sea. It shows the Astrolabe anchored out in the bay and a small schooner at the water’s edge. Signs of European visitors include washing hanging on a clothes-line, several Europeans moving barrels down the path and some raupō dwellings at the base of the hill in the foreground.

It was near here, in May 1772, that Marion du Fresne’s men had set up a masting camp where his men led what Captain du Clesmeur described as ‘the gentlest and happiest life one could hope for among savage peoples’. On the other side of the bay, at Te Hue, Marion meet his death, his men having violated a tapu by drawing their nets and eating fish where Māori had earlier drowned.