Tuhinga 28

Tuhinga 25 presents a diverse selection of articles showcasing Te Papa’s scholarly work.

The first article presents the history of display for the ‘ahu ‘ula and mahiole in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. It outlines how their preparation for loan in 2016 created circumstances for community engagement, cultural interaction and the enacting of indigenous museological practice.

The second article seeks to explore the circumstances of the original gifting of these chiefly riches by ali‘i nuiali‘i nui high chief Kalani‘ōpu‘u to Captain James Cook in 1779, as well as the implications of their most recent return by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Both acts were of lasting cultural and political import, and were magnificent gestures of faith, of trust and, one might argue, of commitments intended to bind future generations.

The third article article examines the art holdings at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) that relate to William Shakespeare and his writings, beginning with an engraving by Jan Harmensz. Muller of Cleopatra (c. 1592), which is treated as broadly ‘Shakespearean’ in its iconography. Later works include paintings by the neoclassicist George Dawe and prolific literary illustrator John Masey Wright, early modernist prints by Eric Ravilious and George Buday, as well as more recent counterparts by Tony Fomison and Sidney Nolan.

The fourth article explores the current position of New Zealand’s national heritage collecting institutions regarding the acquisition of Jewish refugee objects, their use of such artefacts, and the perspectives of refugee families and their descendants as potential donors.

The fifth article aims to provide an appreciation and acknowledgement of John Baillie, a key figure in the establishment of New Zealand’s national art collection in the first decades of the twentieth century.

The sixth article describes the career of Edwin Herbert Gibson, taxidermist at the Otago Museum, who travelled from Dunedin to Wellington to oversee the preparation of the skeleton of the famous racehorse Phar Lap for exhibition at the Dominion Museum. Gibson spent three weeks working in Wellington with the assistance of Charles Lindsay, the then-Dominion Museum taxidermist. Phar Lap’s skeleton went on display soon after.