Two of the Natives of New Holland, Advancing to Combat explained

Two of the Natives of New Holland, Advancing to Combat is a drawing by Sydney Parkinson, drawn in 1770 and published posthumously as an etching by Thomas Chambers in the 1773 book A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas.^{[1] [2]} It is the earliest known portrayal of an Australian Aboriginal person by a European, and a typical example of a painting in the noble savage ideal, showing proud warriors advancing in defence of their land.^[3] The stance of the warriors is said to be based upon the Borghese Gladiator.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Book: Smith, Bernard. Imagining the Pacific: In the Wake of the Cook Voyages. 1992. Yale University Press. 978-0-300-05053-0. 91, 93. en.
2. Book: Nugent, Maria. Captain Cook Was Here. 2009-05-05. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-76240-3. 30. en.
3. Douglas. Bronwen. June 2003. Seaborne Ethnography and the Natural History of Man. The Journal of Pacific History. en. 38. 1. 3–27. 10.1080/00223340306072. 219627977. 0022-3344. The episode is visually memorialised in an engraving by Thomas Chambers ennobling the two men 'as classical heroes' and published in Parkinson's posthumously edited Journal.
4. Book: McCann, Ben. Framing French Culture. 2015. University of Adelaide Press. 978-1-922064-87-5. 109. en.