Jardiniere

This stoneware jardiniere was made by Royal Doulton, England, in about 1906. The body is decorated with applied motifs appropriated from Māori culture, including hei tiki, tattooed face carvings and small plaques impressed with ‘Kia Ora’ (from which the series derives its name). 

Royal Doulton in New Zealand

Doulton ceramics were enormously popular in Aotearoa from the 1840s, and it was suggested in the 1990s that two out of every three New Zealand homes contained at least one Doulton product. Consumer tastes were largely driven by British trends, but in 1906 Royal Doulton created a series of designs for the New Zealand International Exhibition in Christchurch which featured Māori iconography. This range – marketed as ‘Kia Ora ware’ – was produced from 1905 to 1923.

Andrew Paul Wood argues in his article on Doulton’s Māori themed wares that they catered to the ‘curio economy’, creating mass market products for those wanting to demonstrate connoisseurship and belonging through the collection of ethnological ‘curios’. By the late twentieth century such cavalier commodification of Māori culture was no longer considered acceptable, and the last Doulton design to feature Māori subjects was discontinued in 1975.

Further Reading

Quérée, Jennifer. 1993. Royal Doulton. Christchurch: Canterbury Museum.

Wood, Andrew Paul. 2023. ‘Royal Doulton “Māori / Kia Ora Ware”, “Māori Art Ware” and the New Zealand Context’. Journal of the Northern Ceramics Society, 39: 93-123.