'Keeney Balloo S.E.' [Mount Kinabalu, Borneo]

Inscribed in ink by the artist, as title, and mounted on page 25 (verso) in Fanshawe's West Indies, North American and Borneo scrapbook (ZBA4855). Mount Kinabalu is in northern Borneo (at lat. 6 deg. 3 mins N, long. 116 deg. 40 mins E) in what is today the Malaysian province of Sabah. It is the tallest mountain in the Crocker Range, and comprises the KInabalu National Park, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site on environmental grounds. It is here shown from seaward to the north-west, the ship on the left probably being Fanshawe's brig 'Cruizer'. The mountain height of '14000 ft' has been added in pencil by the artist after the title inscription, though modern survey has shown this as more accurately 13,435 ft (4095 m). Low's Peak, its highest point commemorates the botanist (Sir) Hugh Low who first climbed the mountain in 1851 when Colonial Secretary of British Labuan: he was one of the party with whom Fanshawe made a brief expedition into the Borneo jungle with Rajah James Brooke in September 1845. This is covered in Chapter 7 of Fanshawe's privately published family biography of 1904 (see ZBA4901, ZBA4904). [PvdM 2/11]

Object Details

ID: ZBA4903
Type: Watercolour
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Fanshawe, Edward Gennys
Date made: 1845; 1845-46 probably 1846
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Overall: 166 mm x 357 mm
Parts: West Indies, North American and Borneo scrapbook (Album)