KEY POINTS:
Once, at school in woodworking class, I made a rimu pencil box. Mine was a rather lacklustre imitation of boxes made commercially by Sovereign Woodworkers of Wanganui whose work had the bonus of being inlaid with specimens of figured native timber.
Mine was in a different league to the Sovereign one, but theirs was still not in the ballpark when compared to the work produced by the Seuffert family of Auckland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Brian Peet, a fourth generation descendant of Anton Seuffert, has spent 15 years researching New Zealand's indisputable masters of marquetry - the art of inlaid timbers - and he has written a wonderful book.
With one of Peet's aims the avoidance of the erroneous attribution of future finds (other cabinetmakers were also producing inlaid furniture at the same time as the Seufferts), he has comprehensively catalogued and illustrated more than 105 pieces of Anton and William Seuffert's work.
In early 1862, the citizens of Auckland province fell behind a decision to thank the "Mother Country" for their "timely aid" by subscribing to raise £300 to purchase and ship to England a desk - an escritoire - by Seuffert to present to Queen Victoria. A newspaper rhapsodically reported then that it was, amongst other things, inlaid with pikiarere (New Zealand clematis) "to which the native women have an almost romantic attachment, an emblem of purity and innocence with which the Maori maiden wreath their hair when they emerge from bathing".
Ironically, the gift was in fact in gratitude for the 10,000 British troops who had been sent to help wage war against those very Maori in the recent Land Wars. Against this background of a young and developing colonial country, the Bohemian cabinetmaker Anton and his son William played out their lives producing consistently high quality work, then recognised as suitable for the Queen of Britain/New Zealand and now recognised as unique and unparalleled.
It appears typical for the 19th century New Zealand press to over-enthuse about specimens of local industry, elevating their status to suitability for, say, a testimonial piece for a departing Bishop Selwyn or the visiting Countess of Aberdeen. She, suffering our colonial affection, was presented with a table made by Seuffert with reportedly "over 40,000 separate pieces of wood". William Seuffert's record of 6340 pieces was obviously more reliable but nonetheless the accounting on either side is interesting.
Peet's inclusion of contemporaneous newspaper reports gives a perspective of the times that gives flesh to the bones or, may I suggest, a solid carcass beneath the veneer, making a very readable and fascinating book. While produced primarily as a record of archival information and of the known achievements of the Seufferts, in drawing upon the guidance and technical expertise of collectors, historians, cabinetmakers and restorers, Peet has elevated a potentially dry catalogue to a level of excellence.
The Seuffert Legacy is enhanced by 250 illustrations, maps and copies of genealogical records along with appendices detailing contemporary correspondence, essays by restorers/conservators William Cottrell and Detlef Klein, and lists and descriptions of timbers used by marquetry artists.
The fact that many of the illustrated pieces have passed through the rooms of English and local auction houses or the hands of antique dealers sometimes incorrectly or not attributed to the Seufferts adds true value to Peet's statement in his eighth chapter: "It can only be speculated as to the number of Seuffert treasures awaiting discovery."
Undoubtedly, interest in top-quality colonial furniture has intensified over the years, with one of the small Seuffert cabinets detailed in the book selling at auction recently for more than $70,000 and an escritoire desk reputedly selling privately for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Similar desks, when they were made, cost between £120 and £300.
One of the desks recorded in The Seuffert Legacy was destroyed in a house fire in 2002, surely making the remaining known examples worth more. It may be a temptation to use this book as the foundation document, a map, to a treasure hunt for an unknown escritoire. It's not impossible that you have a jewellery box worth more than the jewellery in it sitting on your dressing table. o Ross Millar is director of decorative arts and objects at Art+Object auction house in Auckland.
The Seuffert Legacy
New Zealand Colonial Master Craftsmen. The craft of Anton Seuffert & his sons William, Albert & Carl
By Brian Peet (Icarus Publishing, $95)
