Muff | Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

item details

NameMuff

ProductionUnknown; 1870-1900

Classificationmuffs, accessories, costume

Materialsfeather, satin, cloth

Materials SummarySouthern royal albatross skin and silk

DimensionsOverall: 170mm (height), 200mm (length), 150mm (depth)

Registration NumberPC000876

Credit lineGift of Mrs Pullen, 1964

Overview

This muff has been fashioned from the pelt of a Southern Royal albatross, and lined with kingfisher blue silk.

A popular accessory

Albatross skins, which as English naturalist JF Green observed made ‘a warm though somewhat conspicuous muff’, were particularly prized. In Wellington, Elizabeth and Hector Liardet, who ran a 'feather furriery' specialising in New Zealand land and sea birds, frequenty advertised albatross muffs for sale, and exhibited them in the International Exhibitions during the 1870s and 1880s. After Queen Victoria and Princess Alexandra admired their work at the Indian & Colonial Exhibition in 1886, the exhibition’s New Zealand commissioner, Julius von Haast sent Queen Victoria a muff and collarette made from the skin of a pūtakitaki, and Princess Alexandra a snowy white albatross muff. The Liardet's priced their albatross muffs for between £2 and £3.