IN QUEST OF A PICTURE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 3, 5 January 1910, Page 3

IN QUEST OF A PICTURE.

A RELIC OF THE PAST

Over seventy years ago, Mr Gilfillan, an artist of note in his day, painted a picture of the interior of a Maori pa. It was remarkable for the scrupulous accuracy with which the painter treated the details of costumes, utensils, and architectural features, and for the admirable and correct drawing of the innumerable figures in. the pa. As a record of their life in the' days before the Maoris became Europeanised, it was extremely valuable. ' Moreover, the greatest care, it is believed, was spent' on the coloring of the scene, the .figures and the buildings. Day, the celebrated English lithographer, prepared lithographs from the original, although not in colors. Many of these (says the Evening Post) found their way to New Zealand, but they are now extremely scarce. A few are to be obtained in England, but even there they are rare also. Dr. Hocken, the. New Zealand collector of New Zealand literature, prints and pictures, endeavoured to find the original picture, and he spent much time and money in the qitest. He made his inquiries from place to place all over the United Kingdom, here and there picking up little bits of information of its possessors. At.last he tracked it to a shoemaker, who had won it in a raffie: Beyond that the doctor could not go, because the picture'was burned. However, Mr A. Hamilton has received a copy of the lithograph for the Dominion Museum. It is torn, but nothing is missing, and it can be mourited and put into fine order at no expense and very little trouble.