navigation

 

Section 4

The Furthest Eden

 

Represented by European voyage artists as the last vestige of an earlier heroic age - a primeval paradise untainted by industrial society - New Zealand and her people fascinated the British. Impressed by their industriousness and beauty, Augustus Earle depicted the Maori as romantic savages, representative of the childhood of mankind, ready to take the first steps towards civilisation.

Although eagerly embracing some aspects of European civilisation, such as guns and tools, the Maori resisted attempts to colonise their land. European attitudes towards the Maori became increasingly negative as they refused to cede their land to the influx of British settlers lured by attractive descriptions of this furthest Eden. Fighting a protracted series of wars to protect their land, the Maori were the first indigenous people to extract a treaty from the British when the wars ended with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

 

1. Unknown
[Ea-hei-no-maue, North Island, New Zealand]

2. Richard Read Snr, c1765-1827?
Portrait of Elizabeth Isabella Broughton, about Seven Years Old 1814

3. John Sylvester
[Portrait of Te Pehi Kupe with Full Tattoo on Face and Wearing European Clothes] 1826?

4. Augustus Earle, 1793-1738
Entrance of the Bay of Islands, New Zealand 1827

5. Unknown
Whaling Ship with a Whale in a Cove, New Zealand c.1840

6. Mary Ann Musgrave, FL.1821-1847
Portrait of William Nan Kivell c.1840

7. Three Maori cleavers: Mere and Patou 18-?

8. William Montague Nevin Watkins, 1835-1904
Akaroa Harbour, New Zealand c.1880

 

< Section 3 | Next >

< Back to Paradise Possessed Exhibition Plan

A selection of images from the Paradise Possessed exhibition.

National Library of Australia.

Click here to find out more about NLA exhibitions.

Copyright: ©1998, National Library of Australia