The Painted King: Art, Activism, and Authenticity in Hawaii

3. Shipwreck

ON AUGUST 21, 1880, the sculpture left Bremen, Germany, en route to Honolulu aboard the ship George F. Haendel. Although details in the accounts I found vary, the ship encountered a storm in the south Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. A fire broke out, then the ship struck a reef and sank to the bottom of the sea near the Falkland Islands. All the cargo went down, including the nine-and-a-half ton crate on the deck containing the sculpture. The news traveled quickly to Honolulu. Fortunately the Hawaiian legislaturehadinsuredthesculpturefor50 ,000marks(approximately$12,000),and with the insurance settlement the legislature commissioned a second cast for $7,000. The foundry made this second cast by taking new molds from Gould’s plaster model. With an additional sum of $4,000 from insurance money, Gould and Gibson decided to add something they had always wanted: four partial-gilt bronze bas-relief panels depicting scenes from Kamehameha’s life for the sides of the pedestal. Gibson wanted to use these panels as propaganda, like Trajan’s Column and other classical monuments that portray heroic battles. Gould returned to Florence and started work on the four bas-reliefs. He completed the maquette forthefirstrelief,butdiedofaheartattackonNovember26,1881,athishouse 33 3 Shipwreck 34 the painted king and studio in the Poggio Imperiale of Florence, before completing the other maquettes.1 Marshall S. Gould, the artist’s son and also a sculptor, assumed the task of completing all four reliefs. As described in a letter I found in the archive from the artist’s wife: “My Husband left his tool embedded in the clay of the second relief, and my boy modeled [and finished] them.” The basreliefs mounted on the base of the Honolulu sculpture depict historic scenes from Kamehameha’s life to help create an image of him as a Pacific Hero in The second cast of the sculpture, standing in front of the Ali‘iolani Hale government building in Honolulu. 35 Shipwreck the Roman tradition. There is some debate whether Kamehameha was even at some of the historic events. To the surprise of Honolulu officials, news came from the harbor on March 27, 1882, that the sculpture had arrived earlier than expected, aboard the Earl of Dalhousie. Upon inspection, Gibson and others found that it wasn’t the second cast, but the original, retrieved from the bottom of the sea. Conflicting versions about what actually happened quickly spread throughout a c b d Bas-relief panels on the plinth of the Honolulu cast, designed byThomas Ridgeway Gould. 1881. a. The young chief Kamehameha’s first encounter with Captain James Cook, on board the Resolution off Lahaina in 1778. b. The warrior Kamehameha warding off five spears hurled at one time. c. Kamehameha’s review of the peleleu war fleet off the coast of Kohala. d. People rest along a road, illustrating Kamehameha’s “Law of the Splintered Paddle,” or Māmalahoe, in which he guaranteed free and safe access to roadways. 36 the painted king Honolulu. Stories about the storm, the fire, the shipwreck, and the rescue all became part of the sculpture’s history, complicating the already mixed message of its origins as a neoclassical Hawaiian king in celebration of Cook’s Pacific “discovery.” I found various accounts of the rescue in contemporary newspapers, but it seems that a fisherman brought it up from the sea by tying ropes around its waist and lifting it on board his boat. A wrecker purchased it from the fisherman and sold it to an “old junk dealer,” who placed it in front of his store in Port Stanley on East Falkland Island. On an eight-day stopover at the port, Captain Jarvis of the British ship Earl of Dalhousie recognized it as the lost Kamehameha sculpture and paid an equivalent of $300 or $500 (reports differ ) on speculation of selling it for a higher price upon his arrival in Honolulu. The sculpture lost its right forearm and spear during the recovery and experienced a deep gouge in the back of the cloak. The port pilot from Port Stanley revealed years later that “[w]hile loading it onto the ship [Earl of Dalhousie], one of the hands was broken off.” Gibson manipulated the story to help achieve his political intentions in his newspaper, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser: The condition of the original statue is very good, considering its extraordinary experience. The right outstretched hand...