New Zealand, Maori
1840s
Watercolor on paper, folded for envelope
8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
Provenance: Bill Burger historical collection, New York
This watercolor depicts a standing Maori figure holding a spear on a coastal outcrop, with a second smaller figure shown below on a shoreline, inscribed in the artist's hand "The First Oyster Catcher." The sheet was folded for insertion into an envelope, suggesting it was sent as personal correspondence, lending it an intimate documentary character unusual in Pacific ethnographic works on paper. The 1840s date places it within the early colonial period in New Zealand, when European travelers and settlers produced observational sketches of Maori life.
The upper composition shows the figure rendered with attention to posture, long hair, and minimal garment, set against a loosely handled watercolor landscape of cliffs and foliage. The lower vignette, smaller in scale, shows a spear-carrying figure beside a coastal rock, treated with a lighter, sketchier hand. Together the two scenes suggest a working sheet by an artist recording indigenous subjects from direct or near-contemporary observation.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
New Zealand, Maori
1840s
Watercolor on paper, folded for envelope
8 × 10 in. (20.3 × 25.4 cm)
Provenance: Bill Burger historical collection, New York
This watercolor depicts a standing Maori figure holding a spear on a coastal outcrop, with a second smaller figure shown below on a shoreline, inscribed in the artist's hand "The First Oyster Catcher." The sheet was folded for insertion into an envelope, suggesting it was sent as personal correspondence, lending it an intimate documentary character unusual in Pacific ethnographic works on paper. The 1840s date places it within the early colonial period in New Zealand, when European travelers and settlers produced observational sketches of Maori life.
The upper composition shows the figure rendered with attention to posture, long hair, and minimal garment, set against a loosely handled watercolor landscape of cliffs and foliage. The lower vignette, smaller in scale, shows a spear-carrying figure beside a coastal rock, treated with a lighter, sketchier hand. Together the two scenes suggest a working sheet by an artist recording indigenous subjects from direct or near-contemporary observation.
We ship free anywhere in the world, fully insured, packed by hand.
