Pink Terrace

This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).

In the nineteenth century the Pink and White Terraces were considered the eighth wonder of the natural world, attracting well-heeled tourists from afar. New Zealand painters and photographers produced myriad views that were widely exhibited both locally and internationally and served as advertisements and souvenirs. Among them was the photographer Charles Spencer, who was an active promoter of the Rotorua region. In 1885 he published Spencer’s illustrated guide to the hot springs of Rotorua and Taupo. This advertised his photography and included, for the benefit of tourists and invalids, a report on the medicinal properties of the hot springs by James Hector, government geologist and director of the Colonial Museum.

Some of Spencer’s photographic views were on display at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London when, on 10 June 1886, Mount Tarawera erupted, destroying the natural ‘wonderland’ and killing a hundred and five people. While the eruption may have had negative implications for New Zealand’s international image as a tourist destination, it provided immediate benefits to those exhibiting in London. Visitors were urged to rush to the exhibition to see those ‘pictures of famous scenes that will never again be beheld in reality’ and that were available for ‘modest’ prices.1

Spencer made two panorama photographs of the terraces — this one of the Pink Terrace and the other of the White Terrace. His panoramas are made up of two prints pasted together rather than a print from a single exposure. A market for views of the terraces continued for decades after their destruction, making it hard to know when this one was printed and painted. Catering to this market, Spencer, like the painter Charles Blomfield, thus created views of the terraces long after they had been destroyed. The images continued to be published as engravings based on photographs, with the caption extended to mention the disaster of 1886. The hand-colouring on this panorama view of the Pink Terrace seems more inspired by Spencer’s nostalgic recollections than reality, and the enhanced pinks were probably intended to attract the tourist market, whose interest in black and white views of the pre-eruption terraces had been exhausted.

Lissa Mitchell and Rebecca Rice

1 ‘Volcanic eruption in New Zealand’, Illustrated London News, 2 October 1886, p. 374.

 

… the wonders of the pink and white terraces, with their boiling cauldrons and their crystal and coral cups … have no counterparts elsewhere.

‘The New Zealand Tourist’, New Zealand Mail, 8 November 1879

In the 19th century, New Zealand was home to the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, the Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana near Rotorua. They quickly became the country’s most popular tourist attraction, though most people experienced them through photographs.

Photographers pictured the terraces from multiple perspectives, but colours were beyond the technology of the time. Some attempted to convey the pink hues by hand-colouring their prints later.
The terraces were buried in the eruption of Tarawera on 10 June 1886, but photographers continued to produce prints of them from negatives into the 20th century.