Easter Island Tapa Cloth Figure
September
September
Hgt. 47.5cm
Collected by Gordon Augustus Thomson
Seated figure of folded rushes covered with painted barkcloth which was collected by Gordon Augustus Thomson while travelling in the Pacific from 1836-1840.
Barkcloth, which was made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree tree, was highly valued on Easter Island. The pieces of barkcloth are sewn together because this tree did not grow well there. This rare figure is one of only three surviving examples, the other two being in the Peabody Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts.
The significance of these small figures is not known but it has been suggested they are small examples of much larger figures connected with religious rites. At present the figure is on loan to the exhibition 'Pacific Encounters: Art & Divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860', on display in the Musee du Quai Branly, Paris. The exhibition was previously displayed in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich.
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