Maori figure brings $11,992

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33582, 10 July 1974, Page 14

Maori figure brings $11,992

A rare carved Maori “presents box” (at right) reached only a few dollars short of its predicted ceiling of $12,000 an an auction of primitive art at Sotheby’s London, on Monday.

The piece, said by Sotheby’s to be one of five in existence, was bought for $11,992 by Mr Norman Marshall, a former New Zealand journalist and now chairman of a London publishing house, says Charles Cooper, London correspondent of “The Press.” Mr Marshall, who bought the piece to add to his private collection, said that it was "a bargain.” He had been prepared to pay about $16,000. Sotheby’s said that there were Only four similar examples, all in museums, and that the one offered was the only one in private hands, and certainly the only one Sotheby’s had handled.

In spite of this, it attracted no official interest from New Zealand, Charles Cooper pays. However, the director of the Canterbury Museum (Dr R. S. Duff), said yesterday that there were probably six such boxes in jlublic museunis in New Zealand, an,d probably four in ; private hands.

“To my knowledge, the best examples are in the National Museum in Wellington, in the Auckland Museum, and in the Otago museum,” he said. Dr Duff said that the figures appeared to have originated from a single wood-carver in the Rotorua district, probably about 1840. “As far as we know they are not a traditional form of Maori artefact that would have been found at the time Captain Cook visited New Zealand,” he said. "Because they are not a pre-European form, there is no agreement as to their use.”

Only one of the New Zealand items in Sotheby’s auction was sought for return to its homeland — a wooden mere, of unusual curved form, wanted by the National Museum in Wellington. The museum’s agent withdrew at $2900, and watched the mere go for just $3lOO, substantially more than what had been expected. The successful bidder was the New York art dealer, Merton Simpson. Another major item was a 6ft model canoe for which the price paid was $6440, on behalf of a Continental dealer. Inter Arts, Ltd. A greenstone tiki sold by the Duke of Northumberland brought a modest $644, and

another of anonymous ownership fetched $724. There was no rush for a carved feather box, handicapped by damage, at $386. Although New Zealand’s contribution to it was minimal, the total sale broke the world record for an auction of primitive art. Dealers and collectors paid a total of $583,400, mostly from the great value put on a 25in bronze flute player of Nigerian origin, which brought gasps when the hammer fell at $297,850. The figure, probably about 400 years old, was first sold in London for $350 by a member of the expedition, which found it in 1931.