IDNO

P.99038.GCUM

Description

Three-quarter length portrait of H.R.H. Queen Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke of Hawaiʻi (Dowager). Queen Emma is wearing a European-style dress and jewellery and seated in a typical studio upholstered chair. [JD 23/5/2008]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; N America; United States of America; Hawaii

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

H.R.H. Queen Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani Naʻea Rooke of Hawaiʻi (Dowager)

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

?Gordon Cumming, Constance Frederica

Date

?23 November 1879

Collection Name

Gordon Cumming Collection

Source

Gordon Cumming, Constance Frederica

Format

Cabinet Card

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This album has been transferred from CUMMA’s Object Collections (original accession number Z 4152), into the Photographic Collections, and catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Program One.

P.98869.GCUM to P.99045.GCUM are in A.169.GCUM.

Biographical Information: “Queen Emma Kaleleonalani
Born: January 2, 1836 (born Emma Rooke)
Died: April 25, 1885
Co-Founder of the Queen's Medical Center
Wife of King Kamehameha IV
Queen Emma's father was George Naea. Her mother, Fanny Kekelaokalani Young, was the daughter of Kamehameha I's niece Ka'oana'eha and the king's British counselor John Young. She was adopted by her aunt and uncle Grace and Thomas Rooke because they had no children of their own.
She spoke Hawaiian and English and was an accomplished musician and horseback rider.
She helped to establish a hospital [in 1859] to combat the diseases that were devastating native Hawaiians. It was named Queen's Hospital.
She had one son, Prince Albert, who was the last child to be born to a Hawaiian Monarch. In 1862 he died of a brain fever at age 4. King Kamehameha IV died a year later at the age of 29.
After King Lunalilo died, the Hawaiian legislature considered appointing Dowager Queen Emma as the new ruler of Hawaii, but they ended up selected David Kalakaua instead. [Source: Hawaii Travel, www.hawaiitravelnewsletter.com, JD 23/5/2008]

Publication: The photograph has been digitised for the European Collected Library of Artistic Performance (ECLAP) and is accessible on the portal http://www.eclap.eu/drupal/. [SG 31/10/2012]