Mottled Kauri Wardrobe with Unique Anton Teutenberg Handles
Mottled kauri wardrobe c. 1885 This popular wardrobe variant incorporates drawers and a cupboard as a multipurpose clothes storage cabinet. This wardrobe's appeal is heightened by the use of multiple mottled kauri types, and importantly, handles attributed to Anton Teutenberg. Teutenberg is well known as the carver of the grotesque faces on the Supreme court building, wooden carvings in conjunction with Anton Seuffert, and as a jeweler, engraver and medallion maker. Made in four variants, these are the only known New Zealand themed handles made during the colonial period and incorporate a Maori chief, flax and raupo. Height 79.53 in. Width 52.36 in.
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- Attributed - A cataloguing term where the item in the opinion of the cataloguers, is a of the period of the artist, craftsman or designer, and which probably in whole or part is the work of that person.
- Kauri - An evergreen conifer tree associated with New Zealand, but also grown in northern Australia, and islands around the Pacific rim including Borneo, Vanuatu and New Guinea. The timber is generally golden in colour, and straight grained without much knotting.
A by-product of the kauri tree was the kauri gum, the fossilised resin extracted from the tree. The gum was obtained through digging, fossicking in treetops, or more drastically, by bleeding live trees. Kauri gum was used in the manufacture of varnishes and other resin-based products, and also crafted into jewellery, keepsakes, and small decorative items.
Kauri forests were prolific in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. European settlers in the 1700 and 1800s realised that the timber from these tall trees with broad trunks would be ideal for ship building and construction and a thriving industry was established harvesting the kauri tree. The forests were substantially reduced, and now the remaining Kauri trees that grow in New Zealand are protected, and there are reserves in various areas of the North Island.
The remaining stands of kauri in New Zealand are under threat from "kauri disease", a microscopic organism that causes dieback in the trees, with vast tracts either dead or dying. - Grotesque - Grotesque decoration is any fanciful ornament applied to furniture and decorative arts, and includes distorted faces, mythical animals such as satyrs and sphinxes and less frequently fantastical fruit and flower forms.
The Martin Brothers who set up their pottery at the end of the nineteenth century in Southall, Middlesex derived their fame from their hand made models of grotesque stoneware birds.
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