Johann Heinrich Ramberg
Neptune raising Captn. Cook up to immortality, a genius crowning him with a wreath of oak, and Fame introducing him to History. In the front ground are the four quarters of the world presenting to Britannia their various stores
London: printed for C. Cooke, 1790
RCS.Case.a.107 (frontispiece)

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, tributes to Cook moved from depictions of his death to more allegorical subjects. Johann Heinrich Ramberg’s frontispiece for Thomas Bankes’s 1790 A modern, authentic and complete system of universal geography, represents Cook being received into glory. He is depicted in a pose reminiscent to that of the Apollo Belvedere, on the top of a cloud, as Neptune introduces him to Clio, the Muse of History. Ramberg’s frontispiece, while celebrating Cook as a patron of geographical discoveries, also prefigures the submission of the world to the nascent British Empire, depicting the four corners of the world presenting Britannia with offerings in gratitude for bringing the benefits of civilization to the world.