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Overview
This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).
This view of Kororāreka in the Bay of Islands is taken from below the summit of Maiki Hill in the north, looking down into the town. European vessels are well outnumbered by waka, and Kororāreka Pā is on the waterfront towards the end of the beach. The European buildings include Pompallier House at the far end and All Saints Church, although neither is very clearly demarcated.
Thomas Gardiner’s known work is all in the form of copies of the work of other artists. This watercolour is a copy of Augustus Earle’s lithograph Kororadika Beach, first published in 1838. Earle’s lithograph was also reproduced in the Illustrated London News in 1856, and the latter is the most likely source for Gardiner’s copy. Both pictures are cropped to the same extent on the right, and both show the trees on the left as a group of three spindly cabbage trees, unlike Earle’s 1838 lithograph. Stylistically Gardiner’s work is simple, with careful copying of details. He typically used opaque watercolours, and worked on dry paper, with a characteristic dot technique for filling in detail. In his colouring he favoured dark greens and browns.
Gardiner was captain of the Hobart whaling ship Marianne. He met Earle in the Bay of Islands in January 1828, a detail mentioned by Earle in his book A narrative of a nine months’ residence in New Zealand in 1827. Gardiner told Earle that he was the oldest of the South Seas whaler captains, and had visited the Bay of Islands for the past twenty years. His life dates are unknown, but he was whaling in New Zealand waters as early as 1808 and copying from the Illustrated London News as late as 1856.
Gardiner copied other Australasian scenes from works that were published between 1835 and 1847. These include at least one other copy from a picture that appeared in the Illustrated London News in January 1847, a view of Hobart by John Skinner Prout, Van Diemens Land — Hobart town — from Kangaroo Bay.
Marian Minson