The White Terrace, Rotomahana | Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

item details

NameThe White Terrace, Rotomahana

ProductionCharles Spencer; photography studio; 1880s; Rotorua

Classificationphotographic prints, albumen prints, black-and-white prints

Materialssilver, albumen, printing-out paper

Materials Summaryblack and white photograph, albumen silver print

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

DimensionsImage: 383mm (width), 161mm (height)

Registration NumberO.000767

Credit lineGift of Nancy Adams, 1964

Overview

… 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.