$700 FOR TIKI

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32788, 13 December 1971, Page 12

$700 FOR TIKI

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 12. A greenstone tiki dug up in Happy Valley, Wellington, and sold for $l2 in 1927 was sold for $7OO last week. It was bought by the Dominion Museum at a sale of antiques and Maori artifacts held at. Sloane’s auction centre, Wellington. Two other tikis realised $l5O and $2OO respectively, and a greenstone peka peka went for $35. A Press Association correspondent reports from London that a Maori carving, formerly the property of the French actress, Sarah Bernhardt, was sold at Sotheby’s yesterday for nearly $7OO.

The 36in-high carved wooden post is thought to have formed one of two side-pieces on a threepiece decoration presented to the actress when she toured New Zealand in 1904. Only 6in wide, it has two frontal tiki figures. The buyer was Mr Bruce Chatwin, an art collector from Gloucester. The highest price of the day for a Maori item was $3750 paid for a 44in-high carved wooden figure with characteristic tiki features and arms folded across its chest. Other Maori artefacts auctioned were a flax dress mat, a carved wood feather box in boat-shaped form, and a small greenstone tiki.