Georg Forster: The South Seas at Wörlitz

At the age of seventeen Georg Forster embarked on a voyage around the world with the famous Captain James Cook. Shortly after his return in 1775 the explorer met the open-minded Prince Franz of Dessau and his consort Louise in London.They returned home with a rich collection of objects, as the unique Wörlitz South Seas Collection proves to this day.

While Captain Cook went off to measure the world, Georg Forster as his father’s scientific assistant and the naturalist artist on board explored recently discovered coastlines and islands including New Zealand and New Caledonia, Tahiti and Tonga. Three years later he spent two weeks in Wörlitz, where he reported on his voyage in the spirit of the Enlightenment. This volume, lavishly filled with plates, historic paintings and drawings as well as interesting quotations by Forster and his contemporaries conjures up the world of Polynesia with objects from the South Seas including the grass skirt of a Tahitian dancer, two maces from Tonga and an axe of jade-green nephrite from New Zealand.