Mount Egmont from the North Shore of Cooke's Strait, New Zealand, Natives burning off Wood for Potato Grounds

Charles Heaphy, considered the foremost of the New Zealand Company artists, arrived in New Zealand in 1839 and painted four views of Wellington, Mount Egmont and Nelson on his first expedition before returning with the works to England in November 1841. The watercolours were then redrawn in London by Thomas Allom and published for the New Zealand Company in 1841-2 to encourage emigration. Allom has forsaken the symmetry of Heaphy's watercolour (where Mount Egmont is framed between trees to the right and left) and introduced figures to animate the scene, presumably in an attempt to make the land more attractive to the New Zealand Company's audience.

The present watercolour by Allom is a preparatory study, taken from Heaphy's model, for the eventual lithograph. The lithograph omits some of the figures and the bird perched on the log in the stream. For a discussion of the lithographs see F.M. and D.G. Ellis, Early Prints of New Zealand 1642-1875, Christchurch, 1978, pp. 89-95.

Heaphy's original watercolour was purchased by Alexander Turnbull from the New Zealand Company records in 1916 and is now in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, with Heaphy's preliminary pencil drawing.
We are grateful to Marian Minson, Curator, Drawings and Prints, National Library of New Zealand (Alexander Turnbull Library) for her help in preparing the above catalogue entry.