The unfinished painting depicts the death of Captain James Cook at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, during his third Pacific voyage. Cook is shown lying at the water’s edge in a blue uniform and white breeches, clutching his musket, though he, like most figures, is only sketchily completed. Only four figures—the marine running into the water, the islander stabbing Cook, the chief in a cloak and headdress, and a dead Hawaiian—are finished in detail. The terrain is lightly indicated, with a bay in the background and fighting on the hills. Although Zoffany’s positioning of Cook conflicts with eyewitness accounts, he presents both the dying captain and his attacker as noble figures caught in a moment of classical tragedy, framing Cook’s death as the act of individual treachery rather than a failing of Pacific Islanders as a whole.