Table

This rimu table was made by Herbert Dobbie in about 1900. It features a marquetry-work top with 12 specimens of New Zealand fern cut into veneers of native timber. In the middle of the table top is a six-pointed star with a kauri border and a ‘tumbling cubes’ pattern in the centre. The table has three bobbin-turned legs, supported by a turned stretcher.

Herbert Dobbie was one of New Zealand’s early students of indigenous fern species. Born in Middlesex, England, in 1852, Dobbie travelled to New Zealand in 1875 and began working as an engineering draughtsman for government railways. As he travelled around the country he collected fern samples, and in 1880 he collated his findings in New Zealand Ferns: 148 Varieties, a hand-made book illustrated with full-size white silhouettes of fern fronds. The images were made by mounting fern samples on sheets of glass and directing sunlight through them onto hand-made blueprint paper. A copy of this extremely rare publication was donated to Te Papa in 2012, and can be seen online here.

In 1903 Dobbie set up his own fernery, and in 1921 published a more extensive and sophisticated book, New Zealand Ferns. This was subsequently revised to fix inaccurate terminology, but in one form or another it remained the most popular book on New Zealand ferns for many decades. This table demonstrates Dobbie’s great interest in New Zealand ferns, and his skill as a woodworker and carver.

Further reading