- Museum number
- Oc,NZ.113.a
- Description
-
Feather box or treasure box (wakahuia) made of wood, oval in form. Painted with red ochre.
- Production date
- 18thC
- Dimensions
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Height: 12 centimetres
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Width: 61 centimetres
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Depth: 16.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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Illustrated in D.C. Starzecka (ed), 'Maori : Art and Culture', London, British Museum Press, 1996, 1998, p.97, fig. 61 and K.Sloan (ed), 'Enlightenment : Discovering the World in the Eighteenth Century', London, British Museum Press, 2003, p.248, fig. 232
See A.L. Kaeppler ''Artificial Curiosities, being An exposition of native manufactures on the three Pacific Voyages of Captain James Cook'' (1978) p.181
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See A.L Kaeppler et al, 'James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific', London, Thames & Hudson, 2009, p. 175
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Starzecka, Neich and Pendergrast 2010
Wooden box: brown, deep, rounded-oblong shape, recessed around rim for flat uncarved lid. Projecting wheku head at each end, grooved tongue joined to box. Surface ornamentation divided by narrow bands of whakarare into quarters, each quarter in turn divided by diagonally curved band of rauponga into two parts, each filled with major and minor rauponga spirals. Band of pakura around rim. All surface carving coloured with red ochre, residue of same ochre inside. Lid decorated with kowhaiwhai pattern of pale natural-wood colour and dark stain, divided by straight transverse line into fields of curved pitau patterns.
Provenance: Cook Collection.
Comments: Eighteenth century; probably Poverty-Bay-style kowhaiwhai, carving related to Whanganui style, pattern on lid is the oldest surviving example of kowhaiwhai, apart from blades of early contemporaneous painted paddles, carving is stone-tool work, notable for its
comfortable successful variation and lack of strict bilateral symmetry (RN); Whanganui/ Cook Strait (DRS).
References: Archey 1977: 72, fig. 143; Kaeppler 1978: 181; Neich 1993: 59, fig. 22; Neich 1996b: 97; Simmons 1981: 58.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1979 – 1980 15 Feb-29 Sept, London, BM, Museum of Mankind, Captain Cook in the South Seas
2009-2010 28 Aug-28 Feb, Bonn, Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific
2010 10 May-13 Sept, Vienna, Museum of Ethnology, James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific
2010-2011 7 Oct-13 Feb, Bern, Historical Museum, James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific
2019-2021 7 Oct-Mar, Gisborne, New Zealand, Tairâwhiti Museum, Tū te Whaihanga
- Acquisition date
- 1753-1800
- Acquisition notes
- Collected during one of Cook's voyages.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc,NZ.113.a
- Additional IDs
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CDMS number: Oc17??D19.113a (old CDMS no.)