A rare cloak of harakeke and kiwi feathers has sold at auction for over $72,000, despite frustrations it should have been gifted to a museum.
The 160-year-old kahu kiwi was sold at Webb’s auction house on Thursday night for $72,895 with nearly 40 bids.
It surpassed the estimated price of between $30,000–$50,000.
Before the auction took place, Dr Kahutoi Te Kanawa, Pou Ārahi Curator Māori at Auckland Museum said it should have been gifted to a museum rather than sold at auction.
Te Kanawa said museum offered to accept the cloak as a gift, and even offered to buy it from the owner who inherited it.
The cloak is believed to have been handcrafted by a woman in the mid-1800s. It’s been in Sydney, Australia, with one family for some 160 years.
Chris McKeen/Stuff
Webb’s Director of Decorative Arts Ben Erren pictured with the cloak before the auction.
The family worked with Webb’s auction house for several months to get the cloak back into New Zealand.
In a press release, the seller was quoted – anonymously – as saying: “It is time and only proper that this taonga whaiaro be returned to its country of origin to take its place in Māori history.”
But Te Kanawa says there is more to the story.
She said a family member approached the Auckland Museum seeking an appraisal, asking how much he might expect to sell it for as “it seems appropriate for me to return it to its origins”.
Staff recommended he go to or auction houses Webb’s Art+Object for an appraisal as the museum couldn’t.
A few days later, concerned for the ongoing care of the cloak, they actually made an offer themselves – but it was too late.
Chris McKeen/Stuff
The kahu kiwi is hand-woven.
“He came back to us saying he had already signed a contract with Webb’s,” Te Kanawa said.
“The cultural significance and care for this taonga was more significant to us, as kaitiaki, hence the offer.”
Te Kanawa, a master weaver herself and from a long line of weavers, said the cloak going up for auction is “a terrible situation to be in.”
Webb’s Director of Decorative Arts Ben Erren said Auckland Museum “expressed some interest in buying the cloak, but never made a formal offer. Therefore, it was the vendor’s decision to take it to auction.”
The kahu kiwi is hand-woven from muka fibres – the fibres from prepared harakeke – in something called the whatu, or the single-pair twinning technique.
The cloak was registered under the Protected Objects Act 1975, and now has a “Y registration”. This protects it from being exported again.
It can be sold within Aotearoa, but only between registered collectors of taonga tūturu (protected objects found before April 1, 1976, that whakapapa to Te Ao Māori) and it may not leave our shores
