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The portrait of Omai by Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the great icons of eighteenthcentury art, a symbol of an age which saw unprecedented advantages in areas of travel, commerce, the natural sciences and philosophical thought. The discovery of Tahiti and Omais arrival in England was a direct result of sceintific and economic advances which led to Cooks famous three voyages, and Omais depiction by Reynolds, owes much to Rousseaus idea of the Noble Savage. Reynolds portrait was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776 and it is significant that the next exhibition in which it appeared was the great European Masters of the Eighteenth Century exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1954 when it appeared with important works by Frogonard. Watteau, Boucher, Canaletto, Bellotto, Batoni and Guardi as well as by the finest British painters. Professor Waterhouse wrote of the eighteenth century that it was an age which demanded to have its portrait painted with legitimate pride, and no painter better fitted to bequeath to posterity a truthful but sympathetic series of historical images than Sir Joshua Reynolds has ever lived. The portrait of Omai is not only one of the finest portraits painted by one of the greatest portrait painters, it epitomizes more than any other painting the vision of the eighteenth century.

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