item details
Overview
The artist
This exceptionally high-backed chair from the Edwardian period (1900-1910) was carved by Thomas Aubrey Chappe Hall (aka Tāmati Hape Hore) in 1904. Hall is pictured in a New Zealand Herald photograph (3 November 1952: 8) inthis or a similar high back chair in his Epsom home.The Herald article mentions 'carved dinning room chairs' along with a grandfather clock.The carving features a styliseddouble spiral motifflanked by two manaia (avian figures) at the top of the backrest, and a large central tiki (primal human) figure with a takarangi (dizzy) spiral between its legs. The main parts of the chair are further enhanced with taratara-a-kai (parallel strips of raised zigzag notching) in curvilinear and straight-line aspect covering all the chair's visible surfaces. There is also some scrollwork that appears to be of European origin. The chair's overall decorative formhas many precedents in customary Māori art, especially with the Te Arawa and Ngāti Tarāwhai carving schools that flourished in Rotorua in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Hall had a close association with the Rotorua school of carvers and bequeathed his carving tools to Pineamine Taiapa,a well-known Ngāti Porou carver and tutorat the school.
History
Hall originally settled in the Whanganui River region in the 1890s and was taught carving by Hori Pukehika, the celebrated Ati Haunui-a-Paparangi carver. In the 1920s he carved the paepae (threshold) for the Hotunui meeting house in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Later, Hall did restoration work on the Mataatua meeting houseat the Otago Museum. Although he realised the value in perpetuating traditional art for his many commissions, he also excelled in applying his skill to non-traditional forms, such as non-Māori architectural features and other genres including furniture like this example.