Hawaii: 'A Young Girl of the Sandwich Islands', watercolour over pencil, Mikhail Tikhonovich Tikhanov (1789-1862),...

The portrait of a young Hawaiian girl and her pet dog is perhaps Tikhanov's most appealing watercolor. The girl is shown crouching, her knees drawn up and her feet neatly tucked under as if arranged to fit the confines of the page. She turns her head to face outward at a slightly awkward angle, but she seems at ease, absorbed in her own thoughts. Her small dog rests on her knees, curled up. The young girl wears about her waist a pink pa?u skirt of the finest and softest manufacture. Her matching 'kihei' , or wrapper, is thrown across her left shoulder, over her head, and down her back. An additional detail of the girl's costume is the lei of hala' fruit segments, perhaps worn as a sign of mourning for the recent death of Kamehameha I's sister. The identity of the girl is unknown, but she must have been of high status because of her elegant costume and band of lime-bleached hair, a dressing much in vogue at the time among women of royal rank.