NZ tiki sells in UK for nearly $100k

Not the tiki sold by Sotheby's. Photo / NZ Herald

A New Zealand greenstone hei tiki has been sold by Sotheby's in Britain for nearly $100,000.

The Maori pendant helped the Duke of Devonshire raise £6.5 million ($13.7 million) when he cleared out the attics of his ancestral home at Chatsworth, in Derbyshire.

Sotheby's three-day auction, held in a tented structure in the grounds of the house, ended yesterday with 98 per cent of the 1417 offered lots finding buyers, an event which had only been expected to raise about £2.5 million.

The hei tiki similarly surpassed expectations - it had been expected to sell for between £7000 and £10,000 but actually fetched £45,650, Sotheby's said in an email to clients.

Carved from an adze blank, the figure with head turned to the right and large circular eyes inset with paua shell, is thought to have originally been a treasured heirloom which was passed down within a Maori family.

Sotheby's said the early history of the hei tiki remained a mystery, but it might have been one of the objects that the 6th Duke introduced into his "museum" in the first State Room at Chatsworth before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

"Among the items recorded in the Chatsworth Inventory of 1844 is a 'Chinese Marble Carving', which might be a mis-interpretation of this pendant," the auction house said in catalogue notes.

The most expensive piece at the "garage sale" was a George II white marble chimneypiece which sold for £565,250 against a high estimate of £300,000, while a Victorian paper knife engraved "Chatsworth" fetched £2750 against a low estimate of £40.

- NZPA