Gateway of Maketu Pa

A$120 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

[Title from inscription on mount]. [Wanganui : C. H. Monkton, circa 1865]. Albumen print photograph of a watercolour sketch by Horatio Gordon Robley, carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm (mount); verso with imprint of London Photographic Company, C. H. Monkton, Manager ; both the albumen print and the mount are in very good condition; accompanied by a section cut from the carte s original window mount inscribed in pencil in a fully contemporary hand Gateway of Maketu Pa . Horatio Gordon Robley (1840-1930) was a soldier, artist, and collector. He arrived in New Zealand in 1863, and while stationed in the country drew an unprecedented number of sketches of Māori life. His book Moko; or Māori tattooing was his magnum opus. Robley also had a significant personal collection of mokomokai , or preserved Māori heads with moko design. When he returned to England in 1908 he offered to sell his collection of heads to the government of New Zealand; they declined, and the collection eventually went to the American Museum of Natural History. In 1998 these human remains were repatriated to New Zealand. For a scholarly (and entertaining) article on the notorious colonial New Zealand photographer, Charles Henry Monkton (1840-1890), see Keith Giles essay C. H. Monkton, victim or villain? (http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd%5Cphotographers%5Cessays%5Cchmonkton.pdf)

• Binding: Hardcover

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