Lot 170: Hinemoa

Gottfried Lindauer (1839-1926)
Hinemoa
signed and dated 'G. Lindauer pinx = 1899.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
48 x 58 in. (121.9 x 147.3 cm.)

Although the present canvas comes without a title, the figure and setting suggest the Arawa romance of Hinemoa and Tutanekai, and the most often represented episode from the legend showing Hinemoa before her swim across the lake to reach her forbidden lover Tutanekai.

The subject has obvious parallels in European mythology which Lindauer does little to supress, presenting his Maori subject as a Salon Ariadne:
'Hinemoa swam across Lake Rotorua in quest of love and Tutanekai found Hinemoa as a result of sending his servant to look for water. Given the role Hinemoa played in European culture as a heroine of romance, the Ariadne figure offered a most suitable figure to allude to. The Hinemoa image, structured in a way that brings to mind that well-known character in European culture, exploited the emotional resonance and the dramatic charge of the figure in the interests of European culture in New Zealand. Equipped with such a prestigious forbear in European culture, Hinemoa's appearance and meanings were enmeshed in European preoccupations, narrative types, and artistic models and conventions ... Lindauer's Hinemoa can be viewed as part of that appropriation of Maori history, mythology, and culture by European culture in New Zealand. As a nude, as a romance heroine, and as an art museum piece the character from Arawa legend, her Maoriness indicated by skin colour, physiognomy, dress, and ornament, was thoroughly assimilated into European culture. And the attraction of the 'dusky maiden' could represent the arcadian potential of what was for Europeans the newly available land. The vicarious possession of a Maori woman could be regarded then as a metaphor for the taking over of the country itself.'
(L. Bell, Colonial Constructs, European Images of Maori 1840-1914, Auckland, 1992, pp. 216-7).

The present picture is similar in composition to the smaller (108 x 133.5 cm.) and later (1907) canvas 'Hinemoa' painted for the wife of Lindauer's patron Henry Partridge, now in the Auckland Art Gallery.