Wirope Hotereni Taipari

Studio portrait of the chief Wirope Hotereni Taipari, son of the Hauraki chief Te Hauauru Hotereni Taipari. Wirope's father became one of the principal regional tribal leaders among the powerful Hauraki tribes in his lifetime. A role that Wirope inherited when his father died in 1880. 

Wirope's father commissioned the building of a grand ancestral house after attending the opening of Tama-te-kapua at Ohinemutu, Rotorua about 1873. The carving was led by Wepiha Apanui, son of the prominent Ngati Awa chief Apanui Te Hama-i-waho. The house Hotunui was opened in 1878, the same year that Wirope was married to Mereana Mokomoko, Te Apanui Hama-i-waho's daughter. In 1925 Hotunui, in a controversial decision, was presented to the Auckland War Memorial Museum where it stands today as one of the finest carved whare tupuna (carved ancestral houses) in existence.

Wirope Taipari's portrait depicts a powerfully built and casually confident man of middle years, well attired in the fashion of a gentleman of his time, as befits a man of his status and rank.