Robert Barnfield

A native of Gloucester, England and the son of a retired naval officer, Robert C. Barnfield was articled at an early age to an architect in London. He emigrated to New Zealand about 1883 hoping for relief from his asthma. From New Zealand, Barnfield sailed to the Phoenix Islands on the steamship, Explorer, eventually arriving in Hawaii in 1885 on the same steamer. Barnfield painted and taught in his Honolulu studio but frequently stayed in the Kona district for health reasons. In Kona he boarded with the Daniel Barrett Family. In Honolulu, Barnfield occupied a cottage on the Queens Hospital grounds. He died there onMay 14, 1893. His lively journal and some exquisite watercolors of fish are in he Bernice P. Bishop Museum. David Forbes, Encounters with Paradise, 1992 Exhibition Catalog. See also, Severson, Finding Paradise, an article and illustration of Barnfield's work appears at P. 84. The following is excerpted from Wikipedia: While on the island of Kauai, Meares picked up a Hawaiian chief or "prince of Attooi" (Kauai) by the name of Tianna (Kaiana), whom he took aboard his ship. He took Tianna to Guangzhou (Canton), China, where Meares found a Hawaiian woman by the name of Wine'e who had been left there by captain Charles William Barkley of the Imperial Eagle. Eventually, Meares returned Tianna to his homeland but Wine'e died of illness on the voyage home. Wine'e and Tianna are considered the two first Hawaiians to have traveled abroad. This version, re-imagined by Barnfield, has Wine'e holding a feather lei in her hands rather than a snake as in Vascellini's original engraving.
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