The Maori hei tiki's provenance was questioned by a carver who says he made the piece recently. Photo / Supplied
The Maori hei tiki's provenance was questioned by a carver who says he made the piece recently. Photo / Supplied
A Māori hei tiki pendant that surfaced at a glitzy New York auction house and was expected to fetch around $50,000 has been unmasked as a modern-day fake.
Bonhams’ New York auction rooms have withdrawn the sale of the apparently doctored item after being called out by the Auckland-based carver who dismissed its authenticity.
The murky scandal is being investigated and highlights the dangers of historic New Zealand taonga surfacing for sale overseas.
The item had been advertised in Bonhams’ online catalogue as a ‘Māori anthropomorphic pendant, New Zealand’ circa 1600-1850 and featured in its New York auction house’s African and Oceanic Art sale on Friday (US Eastern Daylight Time).
It carried an estimate of US$25,000 - US$35,000 (NZ$40,000 – NZ$57,000), with its provenance stating it had come through New England and Californian private collections.
However, an eagle-eyed New Zealand antiques expert spotted the pendant listed on an online auction site.
Hamish Walsh, who has more than 25 years of experience dealing with Māori and Pacific artefacts and runs Walsh Antiques, occasionally looks at the Live Auctioneers site and recently came across the tiki.
“My gut instinct – which is the same as when I deal with fake Rolexes - said that hei tiki isn’t right – it looks too good,” he said.
An eagle-eyed expert spotted the piece for sale online. Photo / Supplied
Warning signs, he said, were the description of it being “inanga”, which he didn’t believe it was, and the catalogue listing that dated the piece as being circa 1600 – 1850.
“That’s a ridiculous parameter,” Walsh said. “When you catalogue something, you should be saying 1800-1840 or something like that. You can’t put 250 years on it, it’s just ridiculous.”
He believed the tiki had been tampered with, “notably by inserting paua eyes”, and quickly contacted an Auckland associate who deals in modern hei tiki.
It was identified as being a modern piece done by respected New Zealand master carver Neil Brown.
Brown’s tikis generally sell for around $3000. It’s understood that he carves his pieces in a particular non-traditional way to ensure that his work isn’t passed off as historic.
Brown was alerted to the fakery and directly contacted Bonhams to raise his concerns, the Herald understands.
This week, after questions from the Herald, Bonhams’ global director of communications Lucinda Bredin confirmed that the hei tiki had been removed from this week’s auction.
“The item was withdrawn from the sale last week pending further investigation,” Bredin said.
Brown didn’t want to be drawn on the issue today.
Māori artefacts have boomed in popularity – and price – with international museums and private collectors in recent years.
In 2008, a hei tiki fetched $165,290 at Sotheby’s in New York, while a rare Māori statue - one of just six known pou whakairo sculptures in the world - sold at Sotheby’s for a world-record $2.28 million.
In 2016, an ornate Māori carving, described as being a “remarkable tour de force” by a master carver, sold at a Christie’s auction in Paris for $321,000.
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage (MCH) monitors auctions within New Zealand to ensure that taonga tūturu are traded in accordance with the Protected Objects Act 1975.
Auckland auctioneer Andrew Grigg of Cordy’s says art forgery is nearly as old as art itself.
While he says auction houses are expected to perform due diligence on an item’s provenance, it might be difficult for an international outfit to know if a Māori artwork was new or old.
“Presumably it has been someone here in New Zealand who has dodged it up to profit on the higher international market,” Grigg said.
