Places

Date: 1849

By: Clarke, Cuthbert Charles, 1818-1863; Turnbull, Alexander Horsburgh, 1868-1918

Reference: B-030-003

Description: The Rev Thomas Chapman officiating right of centre, bald-headed and wearing spectacles, with a crowd of English and Maori spectators, around the reclining aged chief Te Ngahue, who was baptised on his deathbed. Te Ariki was on Tarawera Lake. Sir George Grey is probably the standing figure in profile at Te Ngahue's feet while the smaller dark man standing behind him with handlebar moustache and side whiskers is likely to be Grey's secretary, John Jermyn Symonds An accompanying MS note by A H Turnbull attributes this sketch to Sir George Grey, but B30/8, a tinted wood engraving after this sketch, says that "Sir George Grey... was so much impressed by the scene that he had a drawing of it made".. Turnbull's attribution has obviously been taken from the Church Missionary Gleaner, 1884, p. 18 which says that Grey "made a sketch of on the spot.", The sketch was initially reproduced as a wood engraving in the Church Missionary Intelligencer, March 1851, opp. p. 70, with descriptive text of the event on p. 71. See: Journal of an expedition overland from Auckland to Taranaki ...[by George Sisson Cooper] p. 222-226 for a description of this event. Inscriptions: Verso - title in pencil in the hand of Alexander Turnbull, with an attribution to Sir George Grey. A note in another hand suggests that the artist is Cuthbert Clarke. There is also another faint sketch on the verso, showing a European dwelling or similar structure, a distinctive conical hill with fencing at its base in the centre and possibly a cow in the foreground Quantity: 1 drawing(s). Physical Description: Pencil, 251 x 338 mm Provenance: Purchased by Alexander Turnbull from Angus and Robertson, Sydney, April 1917 (although described as 'a print' in the correspondence of 23 Jan and 12 April 1917).