Kōrero: Ideas in New Zealand

This engraving is derived from Jean Perin's 'Sauvage de la Nouvelle Zélande'. Perin was an artist on Bruni D'Entrecasteaux's expedition of 1791–93 in search of the fate of the French explorer La Pérouse. Perin's interpretation of the Māori man is as a heroic classical figure, modelled on well-known images of Jupiter. His view of Māori reinforced ideas during the French Enlightenment that peoples who had not been touched by western civilisation were 'noble savages'.