Loading up the Tranquil Image with gear

A Te Papa expedition, in collaboration with Massey University, is going to study the fish fauna of the Kermadec Islands, some 1000km North of mainland New Zealand. We left Tauranga aboard the MV Tranquil Image yesterday. Loading all the gear on the deck was a bit more of a challengeRead more

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Students from Petone Central School in the Starlab.

June is a busy month at Te Papa – it’s Matariki. And this year it’s going to be especially busy for the Education team! Our Term 2 Education programmes are fully booked this year with over 2500 students attending our Matariki education programme alone. This number includes: 916 students whoRead more

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In: Education, Māori

We recently rolled out a new feature for those of you in interested seeing where zoological and botanical specimens in Te Papa’s collections were collected from. We’ve been mapping individual specimens for a while now, but we’ve added the ability to see where specimens from a particular family, genus or species wereRead more

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Surface Cleaning

Now that we have cleaned the back of the canvas we can look at surface cleaning the front of the painting.  This is a separate procedure from the removal of varnish and overpaints and is completed first because surface dirt is the first layer encountered.  The reason we remove the dirt layerRead more

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    Model Tooth (Human), 1900s, Maker unknown. Gift of the Wellington School Dental Service Training School, Department of Health, 1994. Te Papa  90 years ago: the first intake of School Dental Service nurses began their training (4 April 1921).   The School Dental Service was a response to theRead more

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In: Collections Online, History

As the day of the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton draws  near, Te Papa too has  found itself in the grip of ‘wedding fever’. While the media continues to whip themselves into a frenzy trying to uncover the bride’s best kept secret – the name of her dressRead more

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The Museum of Wellington City and Sea has an exhibition gallery devoted to the Wahine storm which occurred 10 April 1968 and holds the country’s major collection relating to the event. In remembrance of the storm which was not only a disaster for humans with the loss of fifty one livesRead more

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In: Behind the scenes

After completing our technical examination of the painting, taking lots of pre-treatment photographs and writing the condition report, we write a treatment proposal for the painting.  We consider the current condition of the painting and what we would like to achieve with different treatments.  Our proposal is discussed with theRead more

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Handheld Snares Island snipe on Putauhinu Island

Putauhinu Island is a 141 ha muttonbird island south-west of Stewart Island. The muttonbirders on Putauhinu have worked closely with the Department of Conservation (and its predecessor the New Zealand Wildlife Service) to restore the island’s ecology, including eradicating Pacific rats in 1995, and translocating and releasing South Island saddlebacksRead more

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As the History Team prepares to bring out William Colenso’s magnificent printing press for the forthcoming exhibition Oceania – Early Encounters (opening 6 August 2011), I am reminded that the Hawke’s Bay Museum & Art Gallery are planning ‘to celebrate the life and ideas of Colenso – one of the fathersRead more

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In: History, Māori
The back of the canvas

Poedua is an oil painting on stretched canvas, meaning the composition is painted on a fabric support which is stretched to keep it evenly tensioned, over an expandable wooden stretcher.  Canvas supports began to replace traditional wooden panel supports from about the 16th century and were the most commonly used typeRead more

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