Port Darwin - Reflecting Stokes, 1839

This print engages directly with colonial cartographic and survey history: John Lort Stokes, aboard HMS Beagle, charted Port Darwin in 1839 and named it after his former shipmate Charles Darwin. Gribbin's title frames her contemporary mokuhanga image as a reflection on — and of — that historical gaze. The composition likely renders Darwin Harbour as seen from the water or shoreline, with the present landscape layered against the visual record of early European documentation. Technically, the print may employ muted, historically resonant tones, referencing both the wash drawings of survey expeditions and the subdued palette available to early Japanese printmakers before synthetic pigments. The pairing of mokuhanga — a technique that developed in parallel with the Beagle's voyages — with a site of colonial first contact creates a productive tension between Japanese craft tradition and the specific imperial history of northern Australia.