NICOLAS-MARTIN PETIT 

(1777 – 1804, French)

FULL–LENGTH PORTRAIT OF A TIMORESE MOTHER AND CHILD

August – November 1801

Pencil on laid paper

drawing squared-up in pencil

329 x 216 mm (sheet)

bears inscription upper right: No. 15 and five lines in sepia ink in Péron’s hand relating to the engraving process

An extremely fine pencil sketch of a mother and child in Timor, with a particularly detailed depiction of the face and head. The child on her lap has been quickly sketched in, as has a banana palm tree behind her.

The first edition of the Baudin atlas of 1807 included only two Timorese portraits, that of the famous chief “Naba-Leba” (plate XXV) and of a woman called “Canda” in a bright red dress carrying water in two enormous pails suspended from a yoke (plate XXVI). The second edition added quite a lot more on Timorese life including four extra portraits, a Malay cavalryman on horseback (39), a Malay soldier (40), a “Malais Libre” (41), and a woman in a blue dress from the “Île de Rotti” (42).

The present woman is conceivably (although not definitively) the original for the water-carrier named Canda, and if so, this would be one of those occasions when the engraver has really lost the fineness and subtlety of the original work.

As with several other examples of Petit’s work in Le Havre this sketch has been neatly squared up and some secondary notes have been added, as part of the process of preparing the scene to be engraved. A technical note in sepia ink by Péron at the top shows that the drawing was being used in planning for engraved illustrations.