‘The whitening snows of venerable elder’

The artistCharles Goldie painted a series of portraits of elderly Māori who were supposedly contemplating not only their own past, but also the lifespan of their race. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries many Europeans considered Māori to be dying out. Portraits such as this one of Te Wharekauri Tahuna of Ngāti Manawa, painted in 1914, helped to reinforce this view.

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