Maritime Exploration

The visual culture of maritime exploration is reflected in a range of material in the RGS-IBG Collections.

The Collections include published reports and atlases from large-scale scientific expeditions and private journals kept by naval officers, commercial whalers and independent travellers.

While these records depict the experience of cultural encounter from particular points of view, their attention to details of local material culture is striking.

Enlightenment models of natural history, in which cultural artefacts were specimens to be classified and mapped, had an enduring influence.

Note
Additional pages from John Linton Palmer's Pacific albums, and a feature of French Martime Expeditions (3rd screen), can be found in the Gallery.