A Maori Whalebone Club (Patu)

New Zealand, Circa 18th Century A.D.

Height 15 x width 6 inches.

Provenance:

Private Collection, Germany.

Bonhams, New York, 12 May 2011, Lot 2058.

wahaika, cut from the pan bone of a sperm whale and extremely thin and balanced, carved with a full-figure tiki on the handle and abstract tiki face on the butt end; varied and aged patina with natural pitting, the surface with scratches indicative of being made by chipping and sawing with stone tools.

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Mr. Coley joined the Antiquities department in 2021 after working as Managing Director in the Ancient Art department at Colnaghi, the world’s oldest commercial art gallery, where he helped to establish the Ancient Art department and launched Colnaghi New York in 2017. Prior to Colnaghi, Mr. Coley was in the Greek and Roman Art department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Coley holds a B.A. from the University of Miami and an M.A. in Art Market from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and he earned an art-appraisal certificate from New York University.

Pre-Columbian, Classical Antiquities, and Ethnographic Art

A Maori Whalebone Club (Patu)

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