New Zealand fern specimens in original kauri wood box, early 1880s.

Box, of solid mottled kauri, 266 x 183 x 50 mm, containing [25] specimens of New Zealand ferns pressed and mounted on individual cards in uniform 210 x 140 mm format, each mount with a printed label identifying the specimen by its botanical name, using the correct binomial nomenclature in Latin (the system developed by Linnaeus); the versos of the mounts are wet-stamped ‘NEW ZEALAND FERNS / MOUNTED BY / ERIC CRAIG /  PRINCES ST., AUCKLAND / SOLD WHOLESALE & RETAIL’; the specimens were skilfully mounted and have been remarkably well preserved, virtually all remaining completely intact; the mounts (inevitably) have some occasional light foxing, but are otherwise in excellent condition.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, special presentation albums of pressed New Zealand ferns, often bound in native hardwood timbers such as kauri or rimu, became a lucrative part of the souvenir trade of a small number of specialist preparators and binders such as Eric Craig and Thomas Cranwell, both of Auckland.

Much less common survivors than albums of this type, however, are the custom-made hardwood boxes produced by Eric Craig specifically to house pressed and mounted native ferns, of which the present kauri wood one is a fine exemplar. A comparable example by Craig, being a kauri wood box made to the same specifications as ours – almost certainly by the same craftsman (possibly Anton Seuffert?) – and containing 25 specimens on identical card mounts with affixed caption labels, is held in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Registration Number GH004319/1). The Te Papa example, which is dated to around 1881, still has the maker’s label on the underside of the lid, which is worded ‘NEW ZEALAND FERNS / AND / FERN ALLIES / COLLECTED, DRIED, AND MOUNTED BY / ERIC CRAIG / Princes Street, Auckland, New Zealand’ (this title is preceded by ‘25 Varieties of‘ in manuscript). Our example differs only in the fact that it appears never to have had the maker’s label affixed. By offering fern specimens on individual mounts, Craig would have given the customer the flexibility to choose their own particular 25 favourites; they could then also elect to purchase one of Craig’s handsome boxes in which to store their botanical treasures.