Taxidermy display of huia birds, estimate £30,000-50,000 at Kinghams.
A Victorian display of taxidermy showing a pair of now extinct huia birds from New Zealand will appear at Kinghams Auctioneers on July 25 with an estimate of £30,000-50,000.
The huia birds are sacred to the Maori and were a very rare species at the time the display was put together and even before Europeans arrived to Oceania. They inhabited the southern half of New Zealand’s North Island (Aotearoa).
Omnivorous, they fed on insects, spiders and larvae. The featured black plumage with a green tinge, bright orange wattles and glossy black tail feathers which were tipped by a band of white.
The fate of the huia was not helped by the fact their plumes were highly sought-after as hat accessories and taxidermy collections in Europe and as symbols of status and rank locally. The last reported sighting of a Huia was 1907 but there was a credible sighting in 1924.
This 83cm x 79.5cm x 34cm display by a Robert Clarke of Snettisham, Kings Lynn, shows the female and male bird perching on the branch of a faux tree stump along with other species: a rose crowned fruit dove, Regent bower bird, noisy pitta, nightjar and magpie-lark. Sex identification between huia was particularly easy: females had long, curved beaks while the males’ beaks were shorter and stumpy.
Previous taxidermy examples of huia have broken records at auction. In September 2023, a cased pair of huia hammered down for a taxidermy record of £220,000 at Tennants.
It will be sold as part of Kinghams’ Fine & Decorative Arts sale.
