A Superb Old Fijian Club with Maori Designs 19th Century Polynesian Art 

A Superb Old Fijian Club with Maori Designs 19th Century Polynesian Art 

This fine old Culacula  Club is from the Fiji Islands part of Melanesia in the Southern Pacific Ocean. It is a very rare example of a Fijian Club that was carved by a Maori Artist. The Maori Artist was a master carver, you see this when looking at the designs with are carved with such precision and skill and in quite high relief.

According to Hamson in his catalogue “By Decent; Oceanic Art from Old Collections 2019 Paris

” This unusual Fijian Club with Maori designs belongs to a small corpus of objects probably carved by one Maori man living in Fiji in the mid-19th Century. William Oldman illustrates one in his The Oldman Collection of Polynesian Artefacts plate 57. Steven Phelps illustrates four examples from the James Hooper Collection in Art and Artefacts of The Pacific, Africa & the Americas. In the publication Fijian Weapons & Warfare 1977 by Fergus Clunie illustrates a fine Totokia  Club with Maori designs and remarks that he believes it was almost certainly the work of a Maori Sailor shipwrecked or marooned in Fiji in the 19th Century”

With this much information, it might be possible to trace back through old records the name of this Maori Master Carver.

Carved from a single piece of hardwood the incised designs were done by an artist of great skill.

Provenance:  The Todd Barlin Collection of New Guinea Oceanic Art

See my new EXHIBITIONS GALLERY  showing the Museums and Art Galleries Exhibitions that I provided artworks for over the past 40 years. There is the link to the article about my artworks published in the prestigious Louvre Magazine in 1996

I have artwork for Museums and art Galleries but also for collectors at every stage of their collecting. I want to encourage people to explore the fine art of New Guinea & West Papua and the Pacific Islands and to be able to see and touch the artworks in a relaxed and friendly manner in my Sydney Gallery. I would like to invite you to visit my gallery and see the artworks in person and also look at my website www.oceanicartsaustralia.com where there are many Galleries & Sub Galleries to explore.

My Gallery of nearly 40 years is the last physical gallery in Sydney that specializes in New Guinea and Oceanic Art.  Sydney is very close to New Guinea & the Pacific Islands where all of these amazing artworks came from, Australia’s closest neighbors.

INQUIRE HERE

If you have a similar “object” for sale please contact me for the best price and honest advice by a Government approved valuer 

To see many more rare items and the finest masterpieces, please make an appointment with us to visit the gallery.

For all inquiries, please contact us