Untitled original sepia ink wash and pencil drawing [Burial Cavern. Valley of Niu, Oahu, Hawaii, showing Maunalua Bay and Koko Head Crater, November 1845]

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Single sheet (7 3/4 x 10 in.; 19.7 x 25.4 cm), fine sepia ink wash and pencil drawing of the view with four figures seated near the mouth of a cave. BINDING/CONDITION: Float mounted and framed. (65B2D) Originally one of three official artists of the famed United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), also known as the Wilkes Expedition, John B. Dale returned to the United States in July 1840 and joined Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler's U.S. Coastal Survey, which at the time was focused on Delaware Bay to chart the approaches to Philadelphia. March of 1844 finds him as a fifth lieutenant aboard the USS Constitution, under the command of Captain John "Mad Jack" Percival. Between May 1844 and September 1846 the Constitution undertook a circumnavigation of the globe, arriving in Honolulu 16 November 1845. During its brief stay (the ship sailed for Mexico in early December), Dale created evocative images of Hawaii in the early days of American involvement there. His journal entry for 16 November notes rather wistfully that "Kamehameha III, the present Monarch, is probably the last of the Hawaiian Kings -the white man is a fatal presence to the Hawaiians, as he was to the Indians" (Journal of (Fifth) Lieutenant John B. Dale, 1844-1846, New England Historical Genealogical Society). The Niu Valley is famously known for a number of inland caves which were used for Hawaiian burials, even of "ali'i" (chiefs). Maunalua Bay is on the southeast shore of Oahu between Diamond Head and Koko Head, forming the shoreline of the Hawaii Kai area of Honolulu-"Maunalua" means two mountains. N° de ref. del artículo 65ERM0083

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