Pair 3: The Fabric of History

When it comes to “touching history,” 101 Treasures saw a truly singular opportunity in the Clements copy of A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook (1787), first assembled by London merchant Alexander Shaw and later supplemented by naturalist Thomas Pennant. The volume contains 92 specimens of Polynesian tapa cloth, a fabric made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree and brought back in rolls on Captain Cook’s ships on his third exploration voyage (the ships arrived back in Britain in the fall of 1780, but without James Cook, who was killed in Hawaii in February 1779).. The Clements copy is the largest known compilation of these textile specimens, and unique in that it is augmented by Pennant’s manuscript interviews with several of Cook’s sailors. Interleaved among the samples are descriptions of where, when, and by whom each sample was acquired, how the fabric was used, and ethnological observations of the Polynesian natives who had handcrafted it. Together, the vivid textiles and Pennant’s carefully transcribed interviews provide both tactile and textual evidence of cultural memory.

Pair 4: From the Big Picture to Individual Lives