Cootia – Te Rauparaha’s Head Wife

The artist responsible for this watercolour, Isaac Coates (1808-78), was only identified through research in the early 2000s carried out by Marian Minson and Dawn Smith. Prior to this, both the maker and the circumstances under which the potraits were produced were quite a mystery. Coates was born on 26 January 1808 in Norton, England, to a prominent Quaker family. Little is known of his early life, but that he was active as a bookseller, stationer, bookbinder and printer in Darlington. For unknown reasons, he emigrated to Australasia and was living in Nelson, New Zealand, by February 1843. He married Margaret Katherine Cockburn in Christchurch, 1844, and they left for Adelaide, Australia the following year. In 1860 he was living in Melbourne, and by 1872 he had returned to England, where he died in 1878.

Coates is recorded as an artist in a jury list in 1845, but it is likely he was also involved in surveying work for the New Zealand Company at Nelson. It has been suggested that his Quaker connections may be important for understanding his move to New Zealand, as Quakers were deeply involved in the establishment up of the settlement at Nelson. Notably, a leading Quaker figure was John Sylvanus Cotterell, who worked as a surveyor in Nelson, and who had also been commissioned by the Aborigines Protection League, established by the Society of Friends in 1837 in response to concerns raised about the treatment of indigenous peoples by settlers, to investigate the welfare of Māori in the region. It has been suggested that Coates may have accompanied Cotterell on his visits to local Māori communities, which would have offered the opportunity to paint portraits.

As was common for artists of his time (in an era prior to reproductive photography), Coates produced multiple versions of his portraits for sale and on commission. Works depicting figures who loomed large in early colonial histories, such as Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, were particularly desirable and multiple versions of these portraits have been identified. A recent publication records 5 versions of Pipi Kutia’s portrait (including a copy by Robert Hall), and 7 versions of Te Rangihaeata (including a copy by Robert Hall and a preparatory pencil sketch). Examples of Coates’ portraits are housed in Nelson Provincial Museum (5 works), the Alexander Turnbull Library (24 works – one set of 19 and a further 5), Peabody Essex Museum (17 works) and Pitt Rivers Museum (52 works in a folio).

Coates made a significant number of portraits of local Māori during his time in New Zealand, particularly of prominent figures he encountered in Nelson and surrounding areas. It is likely that these two portraits were made in early 1843, when Te Rangihaeata, Te Rauparaha and other Ngāti Toa rangatira travelled to Nelson to protest the Company’s purchase of land at Wairau, just months before conflict erupted on the 17 June that same year.

Coates’ portraits are careful studies, always executed in profile, that capture the unique physiognomy of each individual, as well as their specific adornment and dress. Pipi Kutia’s demeanour and air confirm written records by Pākehā, including that by the artist George French Angas, that described her as wearing her hair ‘which is very stiff and wiry, combed up into an erect mass upon her head, about a foot in height…which combined with her size, gives her a remarkable appearance’. She appears to be wearing a pounamu pendant in her left ear.

Rebecca Rice and Matiu Baker, 2021

References and further reading:

Jocelyne Dudding, ‘An initial report on a recently identified set of Maori portraits at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 18 (May 2006), pp. 115-124.