Having trained in the studio of Richard Wilson, Hodges accompanied Captain Cook on his second circumnavigation of the globe between 1772 and 1775, as the expeditions’ official artist. He was consequently the first professionally trained western artist to visit the South Pacific and document the islands of that ocean, most notably Tahiti and New Zealand. Many of the sketches he made during the voyage were adapted as engravings in Cook’s published journals of the voyage, and he spent a number of years following his return to England creating paintings from them for the Admiralty (now in the collection at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich).

In 1779 Hodges travelled to India, where he came under the patronage of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who became the artist's most important patron for the rest of his life.1 As Geoff Quilley has commented, in India Hodges found his ideal country. The growing consolidation of British power and wealth there created an expanding commercial community of potential patrons for the artist, whilst the Subcontinent itself presented a rich land of opportunity, with its wealth of, as yet untapped, subject matter; rich in ancient monuments, exotic civilisation and dramatic landscape, as well as a history of immemorable antiquity.2 Hodges spent six years in Bengal, travelling extensively, and it was India, rather than the Pacific, which was to be the major artistic preoccupation of his career.

Following his return to England, Hodges travelled extensively in Europe and in 1790 he visited St. Petersburg, of which he painted a view.3 This spectacular view of Port Louis, on the island of Mauritius (which was then under French control and known as Île de France) was most likely painted during Hodges' return voyage from India in 1785. Preserved in the most remarkably fresh condition, it has recently been re-discovered, having laboured under a miss-attribution since its last appearance at auction in 1977, when it was wrongly catalogued as a view of Rio de Janeiro. The view is taken from the sea, and the small, rapidly worked oil, painted on paper which has then later been laid on canvas, was probably executed on board ship, during the voyage. Though under French control, Mauritius was strategically placed in the southern Indian Ocean and its busy capital, Port Louis, was an important victualling point for British East India shipping between southern Asia and the Cape of Good Hope after the peace of 1783.

When it appeared at auction in 1977 this painting was offered by ‘The Minto Family Trustees’, on behalf of the estate of the 5th Earl of Minto, who had died in 1975. It is most likely that the painting was originally acquired by his ancestor, the 1st Earl of Minto (1751–1814), who served as Governor-General of India from 1807 to 1813, and in 1810 was instrumental in securing the release of the celebrated British navigator Matthew Flinders (1774–1814), who had been arrested and imprisoned on Mauritius by the French Governor in 1803 while attempting to return to England, having completed the first circumnavigation of Australia.

Another version of this composition, possibly after the present work, was sold at Christie’s, London, 24 April 2013, lot 207. We are grateful to Charles Greig for endorsing the attribution to William Hodges following first hand inspection.

1 The sale of Warren Hastings' collection at Christie's in April 1797 contained no less that thirteen oil paintings by Hodges, whilst the sale of the contents of Hastings' house, Daylesford in Gloucestershire, in 1853 contained a further twenty-three works by the artist, together with two published editions of his complete views of India (see I. Stuebe, The life and works of William Hodges, New York 1979, pp. 371–73). Hastings also provided support to Hodges’ widow and children after his death in 1797.

2 G. Quilley, ‘Picturing the History of India’, in G. Quilley and J. Bonehill (eds), William Hodges 1744–1797: The Art of Exploration, New Haven and London 2004, pp. 137–39.

3 See L. H. Cust (revised by Lindsay Macfarlane), Hodges, William, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, published online, 21 May 2009. Lot 18 in the posthumous sale of Hodges studio was described as 'A view of the statue of Peter the great, and part of the city of Petersburgh'.