12:22 PM |
Te Papa acquires 'Pacific Mona Lisa'
By TOM HUNT - The Dominion Post
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Arts
Te Papa has paid $2 million for a painting known as the Pacific Mona Lisa.
The Dominion Post can reveal the national museum has bought the 1785 John Webber painting Poedua after almost two years of behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Christchurch Art Gallery director Jenny Harper said the $2.04m cost was more than the total average spent by Te Papa on art each year and it would become one of its most valuable works.
Te Papa acting chief executive Michelle Hippolite said the painting was bought using the museum's cash reserves – made up of government funding and its own fundraising. It is one of the most expensive paintings Te Papa has bought.
The museum already owns two smaller Webber paintings, but museum spokeswoman Jane Keig said Poedua was "one of the most significant historic artworks in the Te Papa collection".
The Web Gallery of Art describes the model – an imprisoned Tahitian princess, correctly spelled "Poetua" – as a "bare-breasted, mysteriously smiling, Pacific Mona Lisa".
Details of how the painting would travel from Christie's art house in London to New Zealand were yet to be settled.
When it arrives, it is expected to be on display for about a month before being taken away for cleaning, which could take up to a year.
The museum has signed a confidentiality clause and cannot reveal details of the negotiations, but it is known that a curator and conservator travelled to London last month to check its condition.
They reported it was in good condition, but dirty.
Victoria University art history lecturer Roger Blackley said there were two other versions of Poedua in public collections, including the original, held by the National Maritime Museum in London.
Te Papa's version was believed to have been in the possession of descendants of the Pomare dynasty, which ruled Tahiti throughout the 19th century, he said.
It was listed as being in a private collection in Nice, in the south of France, but other than that its history since 1976 was unknown.
He said Poedua was seen as the archetype of "Pacific feminine beauty, although ironically the painting was made while she was a hostage" aboard one of the European ships.
"It's one of the most alluring of all paintings from the 18th-century voyages."
In 1991, Te Papa bought Webber's painting Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte Sound, circa 1788, from the Bishop Suter Art Gallery in Nelson for about $300,000.
Suter curator Anna-Marie Smith said the painting was sold because it was deemed to be of such national importance that it was better housed at Te Papa, which had better facilities for works of its calibre. "It's really, really significant that Te Papa is willing to make such a significant investment on behalf of the Pacific," she said of Poedua.
Te Papa also has a portrait Webber painted of Captain Cook, circa 1780, given by the government in 1960, and four Webber works on paper from the National Museum's fine art collection, which Te Papa acquired in 1992.
In 2004 Te Papa paid $3.1m – believed to be a record price for New Zealand art – for Colin McCahon's Walk (Series C) 1973, a 12-metre-long series of panels depicting a walk along Auckland's Muriwai Beach.
CURATOR'S FIRST REACTION TO TREASURE: IT WAS DIRTY
Te Papa European art curator Vicki Robson stood before a $2million painting in a prestigious London art house and thought: "It was dirty."
The whereabouts of the massive version of Poedua by John Webber – from smaller paintings he did while voyaging through the Pacific with Captain James Cook in November 1777 – had been largely unknown for more than two centuries.
The Dominion Post can today reveal that after secret negotiations with Christie's auction house and the Tahitian dynasty believed to have held the painting for generations, the national museum has spent $2.04 million on the painting, now one of its most prized art pieces.
"My first thought was that it was dirty," Ms Robson said, remembering seeing the painting for the first time on her trip to London last month.
But behind the centuries of grime lies a tale involving imprisonment, desertion, art history, mystery and New Zealand history.
Webber accompanied Captain Cook on his third, 1776-1780, voyage to the Pacific, where the captain was welcomed back to Tahiti with open arms. Also on the voyage was another ship – the Discovery, captained by Lieutenant Charles Clerke – from which two crew deserted.
As the story goes, to get the Tahitian chief to help with their return, Cook locked Princess Poedua, her brother and husband in Clerke's "great cabin" – and the deserters were returned in about three days.
While the princess was imprisoned in Clerke's tiny cabin, Webber did smaller, now lost, oil paintings of her.
On his return to England, for his European audience, the cramped confines of the tiny cabin-turned-cell were replaced with a lush tropical backdrop.
Europeans had seen images of Pacific Island people, but none of females on this scale – at more than 1.65m high it was not only a massive painting but also changed the perception of how the Pacific was portrayed.
"It was probably the first oil painting that showed the image of a South Pacific woman as an alluring beauty," Ms Robson said.
In London, it was exhibited in the Royal Academy – at the time England's most prestigious gallery.
Not long after, the painting disappeared, eventually turning up in the possession of the Tahitian Pomare dynasty.
Fast forward to 2008 in Wellington, when the painting first came to the attention of late Te Papa chief Seddon Bennington, who saw it in a Christie's catalogue.
The museum hastily put in a phone bid, getting a conservation report but taking the unusual move of bidding on a painting unseen. But it failed to sell.
It began a series of negotiations with Christie's, on behalf of the Tahitian dynasty, believed to have held the painting since at least 1900.
Ms Robson said that, as the euro slipped against the New Zealand dollar, the painting effectively became affordable for the museum.
Last month she and Te Papa conservator Melanie Carlisle travelled to London before settling the deal.
Despite the dirt, what they both found was a painting in good condition and, crucially, it had never been relined – a process that could "squash" the painting.
This week the deal was confirmed.
Exactly how and when Poedua will arrive in Wellington is yet to be decided.
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pacific islands media association
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aotearoa, new zealand
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