I posted about this in another blog life but didn't have a picture. Now those good custodians of our culture at the Auckland War Memorial Museum have kindly provided one. The story goes that in the 19th century a Maori carver, Potororo Tamatea, a recent convert to Christianity, carved this Madonna and Child as a gift for a missionary in 1845. It was rejected as blasphemous.

For my money this can sit beside any image of the Madonna anywhere. For me it is one of those works of art that produce a viscerally emotional reaction that I find a little hard to explain.