"KOÉ", natif de Coupang, Île Timor, Archipel de la Sonde (Malaisie).
"ORION (PAPOUAS)", Arfour de la terre des Papous, (Melanésie).
"VOYAGE AU PÔLE SUD ET DANS L'OCEANIE"
sur les corvettes L'Astrolabe et La Zélée exécuté par ordre du Roi pendant les Années 1837-1838-1839-1840
sous le commandement de M. Dumont-d’Urville;
LÉVEILLÉ (Lithographed by)
after the original busts photographed by BISSON.
under the direction of Mr. le Dr. DUMOUTIER.
Rare and interesting lithograph depicting 2 busts of indigenous from Timor and Papua.
Lithographed from a photograph, in its turn a plaster model of the subject taken from life, during Dumont d'Urville's visit to Timor and Papua.
The two busts from which these copies were made are in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris.
Ultimately realised in the publication, Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans L’Océanie, the lithograph depicts busts of indigenous from Timor and Papua New Guinea.
Dumoutier was commissioned by Dumont d’Urville to collect casts and busts of the indigenous populations of each site visited over the course of the voyage.
The material collect was used to substantiate Dumont d’Urville’s belief in a stratified racial hierarchy among the inhabitants of the South Pacific region.
A pseudo-science popular in the 19th Century, phrenology involves the study of the shape
and measurements of the skull to predict and determine variations in human temperament.
Predicated on the belief that the relative size of different areas in the brain dictated personality and character,
phrenological research was often enlisted to support prejudicial racial profiling and endorse colonialist imperatives.
In Dumoutier’s skulls and busts, the figure becomes a specimen to be studied.
As art historian Stacy Kamehiro notes, while Dumoutier was convinced that all humans shared a common origin and cerebral physiology,
his work in the South Pacific was used as evidence to support the argument that each race displayed fundamentally different origins and characteristics.
This position is articulated in the text written by the entomologist Émile Blanchard (1819-1900) that accompanied the published lithographs.
Photography was seen to satisfy the same agenda.
The invention of photography occurred after Dumont d’Urville had set off.
Upon his return, he organised to have his research materials photographed.
This rare lithograph test, a first in terms of use of photography in Anthropology, was made from a daguerreotype by the Bisson brothers
and is an early attempt to reproduce for publication the material collected during French explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville’s 1837-1840
voyage through the Pacific and the Antarctic circle on board the ‘Astrolabe’ and the ‘Zélée’.
"GIDE Editeur Paris" dry stamp at centre bottom margin.
SIZE: 360mm(H) x 550mm(L) [sheet]
Besides a large humidity trace at top right corner, in excellent condition.
This lithograph was issued for the subscribers and never bounded in the volume.