Artwork Information

Constance Gordon-Cumming fled the ‘steaming heat’ and ‘stifling’ tropical weather of Fiji for the more temperate climes of Kawau Island in late December 1876. Travelling with Rachel Hamilton Gordon, her Fiji-based host and wife of the first British Governor there, they were accommodated by Sir George Grey, New Zealand’s (retired) two-time Governor, at his magnificent home Mansion House. Describing the island as a ‘little Paradise’ Gordon-Cumming was particularly taken by the pohutukawa trees telling her readers that literally translated the name means ‘the brine-sprinkled’ in reference to their coastal habitat. Recording ‘When in its prime, each tree is one mass of glowing scarlet; and the effect of its flame-coloured branches overhanging the bright blue water, and dripping showers of fiery stamens in the sea or on the grass, is positively dazzling. Already the first burst of colour is passing off, but enough remains to give marvellous beauty to the shores.’* Her watercolour brilliantly captures the pohutukawa’s craggy forms clinging to the cliffs giving the last of their majestic summer show.

Gordon-Cumming delighted that beneath the branches of the ‘“brine-sprinkled” trees’ which ‘literally dip in to the water…are oyster-beds extending entirely round the island, a coast-line of perhaps thirty miles.’ She humorously recalled that the oyster-beds made an ‘enticing form of afternoon picnic…where bread and butter and a hammer were the only accessories carried to the feast. True gourmets brought lemon and spoons.’ *

* C. F. Gordon-Cumming, At Home in Fiji (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1882), 264-5.

* C. F. Gordon-Cumming, ‘New Zealand in Blooming December’, The Century Magazine (1884), 921.