This writing bureau was made in Auckland in 1867 by Anton Seuffert, a Bohemian cabinetmaker who lived and worked in the city from about 1860. It is known as ‘the Hooker cabinet’ and was presented as a gift to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, the noted botanist and explorer, then director of Kew Gardens, in London.
It is thought that the desk was commissioned by a number of ‘grateful colonists’ as a gift to Hooker following the publication of Part Two of his Handbook of the New Zealand Flora, in 1867.
The desk’s design is based on a ‘secretaire’, a desk that became popular in France in the eighteenth century, during the reign of Louis XV. It combined two purposes – a desk for writing on, and a cabinet for storing papers and writing equipment.
The ‘Hooker cabinet’ is not as elaborately decorated as the ‘Watt cabinet’, another writing bureau by Seuffert in Te Papa’s collection. However, it has the same distinctive qualities. It is finely crafted and combines European style with New Zealand woods and decorative motifs.
The main cupboard door features Seuffert’s intricate marquetry. The globe with New Zealand prominent was perhaps intended to remind Hooker of his explorations in this part of the world.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (2001).