1930.75.18

Collection type

Object

Description

Forgery of an end-blown flute, koauau, carved from (animal?) bone. [JC 14 12 2007]

Geographical reference

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

England London Borough of Bromley

Cultural groups

European

Māori

Person

Maker James Frank Robieson

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source James Frank Robieson

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1930

Date collected

By 1930

Acquisition information

Purchased: 1930

Materials and processes

Material Animal Bone, Process Carved

Dimensions

Width 30 mm, Diameter 27 mm mouth hole, Length 166 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1930.75.18

Research and responses

For a general account of this collection, see page 182 of ‘The Faking of Maori Art’, by Henry Devenish Skinner and T. Barrow in Henry Devenish Skinner, Comparatively Speaking: Studies in Pacific Material Culture, 1921– 1972 (eds. Peter Gathercole, Foss Leach, and Helen Leach), (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 1974), pp. 181–92: 'The only clear evidence of Robieson's deceptive sale of his own work as genuine is the catalogue of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. An entry for 8 April 1930, pp. 128-129, records the acquisition of twenty-one "Old Maori" items sold for the sum of nineteen pounds by J. B. Robieson, of 24 Bromley Hill, Bromley, Kent. Genuine artefacts in this collection include adzes, a block of nephrite, and commonly occurring material such as partly made fish hooks. The decorated items in this group, which represent the supposedly most valuable part of the purchase, are made in a characteristic Robieson style. The falsity of this sale went unnoticed until 1956, when one of the authors [Barrow; see on] identified exhibitied specimens as being from the hand of Robieson.' Skinner and Barrow go on to discuss particular items. They also note (note 7): 'The Pitt Rivers Museum catalogue records Robieson's initials as "J.N." however K. R. Cairns confirms his forenames as "James Frank". The recording of "B" for "F" is a probable error, due in this case it would seem, to the cataloguer'; and (note 8): 'T. Barrow on a research visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum detected Robieson and Little forgeries which were then on exhibit. Miss Beatrice Blackwood of the Pitt Rivers Museum, in a letter dated 10 December 1970, recalls the occasion in these words: "I remember very clearly Mr Barrow's visit in 1956 when he spotted the Robieson forgeries. We took them out of the display cases and put them in a drawer labelled "Forgeries" where they still are."' [JC 12 5 2003]

The 'Robieson' collection at the PRM is also referred to on page 738 of ‘Pacific Arts, IV. Forgery’, by Robin J. Watt, in Vol. 23 of Jane Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, no. 7, pp 737–8: 'He [Robieson] sold many on the open market, including some to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, in 1930.' [JC 12 5 2003, 13 12 2007]

Associated publications

Illustrated in black and white as figure 12.3 on page 184 and discussed in detail on page 183 of 'The Faking of Maori Art’, by Henry Devenish Skinner and T. Barrow, in Henry Devenish Skinner, Comparatively Speaking: Studies in Pacific Material Culture, 1921– 1972 (eds. Peter Gathercole, Foss Leach, and Helen Leach), (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 1974), pp. 181–92: '12.3 "Ancient flute, koauau of bone, open at both ends and with 4 open stops; carved with human-form grotesques." (The classic koauau is made of straight limb bone, usually of human femur or humerus, and typically decorated at the ends alone. The bone used in this object is too coarse to be human bone, while the carving is unduly elaborate. The suspension lug, commonly found on short flutes of this type, is here absent.)' [JC 12 5 2003]

Search terms: Music, Reproduction, Figure, Musical Instrument, Flute