Goldie, Te Aitu Te Irikau (An Arawa Chieftainess), 1919

The present portrait, Te Aitu Te Irikau (An Arawa Chieftainess), is a fine example of the work of one of New Zealand’s most revered portrait painters, Charles Frederick Goldie. Completed in 1919, this painting is one of at least ten portraits that Goldie completed of Te Aitu Te Irikau, which illustrates his common tendency to repeatedly paint the same sitter in a variety of different costumes and poses.

Goldie was a highly accomplished portrait painter with an eye for detail and his paintings are typically characterised by a meticulous attention to details, small imperceptible brushwork, even all-over lighting, and they often feature an indeterminate background in order to focus attention on the sitter. These elements are clearly apparent in his portrait of Te Aitu Te Irikau and they are recognised as the hallmarks of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated and iconic portraitists of the colonial period, whose works have come to possess additional significance as factual documents. Although Goldie has received mixed reviews over the past century due to his personal beliefs and artistic practices, it is worth noting that his portraits are now celebrated by many as historical records of the identity and existence of ancestral koroua and kuia, which are considered to be taonga, or sacred, to Māori.

Composed in bust-length format and orientated three-quarters to the right, Te Aitu Te Irikau gazes thoughtfully into the middle distance. Like the best of Goldie’s paintings, the portrait of Te Aitu Te Irikau exudes something of a pensive nostalgia. As is repeatedly mentioned in relation to Goldie’s work, the artist was convinced by current thought that the Māori people represented a dying race and that their existence needed to be captured in paint before they disappeared. As a result of this belief, a distinctive element of sentimentality is discernable in many of his paintings. It is evident in his portrait of Te Aitu Te Irikau through her averted gaze, slightly bowed head and slumped posture but it is also moderated by the prominent trappings of her elite standing.

As an Arawa chieftainess, Te Aitu Te Irikau is shown wearing accoutrements that immediately spell out her high-class stature to the viewer. Wrapped in a flax and feather cloak, with the details of her moko clearly visible, the sitter is adorned by a long slender kuru (greenstone earring) and a prominent greenstone tiki pendant that she wears around her neck. A further mark of her noble position is seen in the three white-tipped huia feathers that are embedded in her hair. The huia was a sacred bird to Māori and, because of this, they used its feathers to adorn warriors and the deceased as well as to ornament those of high social distinction. Goldie is celebrated for his assiduous focus on each specific aspect in the execution of his paintings and his portrait of Te Aitu Te Irikau resounds with a detailed elegance. The myriad of lines that etch her face combined with the visible strands of smoky-grey hair, the perceptible texture of her moko and fibres of her cloak, render Goldie’s portrait of Te Aitu Te Irikau both an invaluable historical artefact and a painting of innate artistic value.

JEMMA FIELD