Fiji Chiefly Necklace
Origin Australia
Medium Pigs tusk, vau, and glass trade-beads
Dimension 37 cm (14⁵/₈ inches)
Origin: Australia
Medium: Pigs tusk, vau, and glass trade-beads
Dimension: 37 cm (14⁵/₈ inches)
Provenance: Grant was the art-master at the Technical School in Daylesford, Victoria (Australia). Following the destruction during WWI of the town of Villers-Bretonneux in France, he was commissioned to carve wooden panels consisting of Australian fauna and flora for the school, which was rebuilt with funds donated by the citizens of Daylesford. With his wife, they owned the “Hallow bank“ guesthouse at 6 Harts Lane in Daylesford from 1905 to 1955, and after his death Mrs. Grant kept it going until the early 1960’s. Around 1906/1908 Grant had purchased a group of Fijian artifacts from a traveler in Kyneton and this group of pieces (including the present plate) was on display in the Billiard Room of the guest house until the death of Mrs. Grant and the closing of the hotel.
See the example in the collections of the Musée des Confluances, Lyon, ex Gal. Meyer and tose in the Fiji Museum, Suva.
Ref. : Phelps, Steven: ART AND ARTEFACTS OF THE PACIFIC, AFRICA, AND THE AMERICAS-THE JAMES HOOPER COLLECTION. Hutchinson & Co. LTD. and Christies, Manson & Woods, London. 1975.
See early photographes circa 1870/80 of Fijian warriors posing with batinivuaka around their necks and one instaled on a votive wood effigy in the Kerry photographe miss-identified as from New Guinea.
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