Unpacked: Treasures from Te Papa - Huakina: He taonga mai i Te Papa

See some of New Zealand’s most striking, historical and contemporary artworks from the national collection here in Hamilton. Waikato Museum has partnered with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in a recent initiative; Unpacked: Treasures from Te Papa, where selected masterpieces are loaned to display for three months. 

Te Papa’s aim is to create opportunity for its treasures to be seen by more people in more places.

Waikato Museum and Whangarei Art Museum are participating in this project which launched at the Whangarei Art Museum in December 2013.

Edward Poynter’s painting Asterié (1904), a beautiful portrait made by one of the most successful Victorian artists of his day, is the second art work to feature at Waikato Museum following The Blowing Up of the Boyd (1889) by Louis John Steele and Kennett Watkins.

Asterié depicts the story from Roman poet Horace’s Odes. The painting ponders on the moral questions of infidelity, as Asterié is shown gazing down into the street below – serenaded by an admirer while her lover is away. The carnations symbolise fidelity, appealing to the early 20^th Century social values of chastity and self-denying virtue.

Such neoclassical portraits based on a revival of the ancient Greek and Roman arts were popular with British as well as New Zealand audiences. Asterié is a stunning example of Poynter’s mastery in the genre, first exhibited in New Zealand at the Christchurch International Exhibition in 1906.

Image: Edward Poynter, Asterié, 1904, oil on canvas, gift of Sir Alexander Roberts 1960 (Te Papa: 1960-0001-1)