Overview
Anton Seuffert’s furniture holds an enduring fascination for New Zealanders. He brought the technical virtuosity of a European-trained cabinet maker to his new colonial environment, drawing on local materials and subject matter to create works with a uniquely New Zealand flavour.
European training
Anton Seuffert (1815–87) was born in Bohemia, in today’s Czech Republic, and trained as a cabinet maker at the Austrian firm Leistler & Sons, in Vienna. Leistler & Sons produced exhibition and court furniture in historical-revival styles. Working on their complex designs provided Seuffert with excellent experience for his practice in a new colony across the Pacific.
A new practice in New Zealand
Seuffert arrived in Auckland in 1859. By the mid 1860s, he had begun making fine writing cabinets – symbols of status for both maker and owner. Today, they remain the best examples of Seuffert’s practice.
Seuffert drew upon elements of European furniture design to make his cabinets. He was particularly influenced by the ideas behind the cabinet of curiosities – a multi-compartmented piece of furniture made in the 1600s and 1700s for wealthy, educated collectors to display rare and unusual objects.
The writing cabinet in Te Papa’s collection has a complex arrangement. A central door opens to reveal classically inspired wooden columns, set against a mirrored back, and a floor inlaid with parquetry. Seuffert reserved sophisticated interiors such as this for his finest work.
The cabinet’s design reflects the popularity of historical-revival furniture during the mid 1800s. Seuffert was influenced by French furniture of the late 1700s, especially in his use of curved cabriole legs.
An exceptional talent with timber
Seuffert was exceptionally talented in working with native New Zealand woods. He used them to create geometric inlays and complex pictorial schemes: a moa standing beside a tree fern, a Māori chief in front of a wharenui (meeting house), and native ferns as finely detailed as botanical specimens.
The availability of local timbers appeared endless. When one of Seuffert’s exemplary pieces appeared at the 1862 International Exhibition, in London, Auckland’s Southern Cross newspaper reported that
… the supply of furniture wood is all but exhaustless, the varieties numerous, the variegated surface of polished boards afford the artistic manufacturer of furniture a field for the display of taste, which dull and costly mahogany and rosewood, generally used for veneers, can never present.
Seuffert selected wood for its hardness, strength, texture, and colour. The rich original colours of the native timbers he used in this cabinet have faded. But the light kauri body and the dark-brown heartwood pūriri and rewarewa, used in the inlay, still show the differences in tone.
Artistic collaboration
Seuffert collaborated with the German-born sculptor and medal maker Anton Teutenberg (1840–1933) to make this writing cabinet. Teutenberg worked on the head of the Māori man at the top of the cabinet and the surrounding carved designs, which are influenced by native plants.
References
Brian Peet, The Seuffert Legacy: New Zealand colonial master craftsmen, Icarus Publishing, Auckland, 2008.