New Zealand-born artist, Marian Maguire, creates lithographic series that combine the colonial history of New Zealand with imagery from Greek vase painting. She brings together the rich print and photographic iconography of Europe’s encounter with New Zealand with the classical imagery of Ancient Greece to comment on the timeless and yet culturally nuanced nature of empire and conflict.

The addition of black vase iconography serves to emphasise the loaded history that Europeans brought with them to the Pacific to meet an equally ancient Maori culture. The weaving of mythic classical heroes like Odysseus and Heracles into narratives of European exploration highlights the changing nature of received histories. Just as classical myths changed through oral traditions, perceptions of the Pacific changed in Europe as different accounts and images were brought back.

In her series The Labours of Herakles, Maguire sets the classical tale of Herakles (Hercules) in New Zealand, combining his labours with colonial encounters and struggles between Maori and the British. Introduced and concluded by decorated classical urns, the twelve prints show Herakles as both coloniser and colonised, struggling to make sense of his life and labours. In every print Maguire quotes directly from prints and photographs produced as a result of British exploration and settlement in the Pacific. Many of these are in the NMM collections.

This second lithograph in the series shows Herakles signing the (in)famous Treaty of Waitangi that founded the modern state of New Zealand in 1840 through signed agreement between the British and a number of Maori chiefs. The terms of the agreement remain debated to this day. In Maguire's version all the figures appear in black-vase style profile. Herakles in his lion skin represents the powerful coloniser, with Queen Victoria at his back under the British flag. He signs to the left of the table. To the right stands a Maori chief taken from Sydney Parkinson's drawings on Captain James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. He is similarly supported by an ancestor, here in the form of a carved 'poupou' based on one in the Otaga Museum. This warrior also appears in Maguire's series 'The Odyssey of Captain Cook' meeting Cook on the beach (ZBA7684). There he is in the dominant position to meet Cook, here he is on the weaker left-hand side, usurped by Victoria.