Provenance:
Exhibited Canterbury Society of Arts, 1910
Reference p. 39, Sydney Lough Thompson, Home & Abroad, Julie King, Robert McDougall Art Gallery 1990
Stock-in-Trade of Savill Galleries, Melbourne, Menzies 2016
Private Collection, Victoria

There are several known Maori portraits by Sydney Lough Thompson. One is a classic Mother & Child, similar in composition to Gottfried Lindauer's Anna Rupene & Child in the collection of Christchurch Art Gallery. Another is a portrait inscribed Kokuhu To-oa A.L.D. Fraser 1907 in a private collection. Julie King, author of Sydney Lough Thompson, Home & Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery 1990 say's it is an intense realiszation of the man's powerful presence, painted in a style derived from northern realist tradition.

On Thompson's return to New Zealand, painting the Maori rather than the pioneer became a more significant subject for him. In 1908 Charles F Goldie's nostalgic portrayals of the old time Maori had secured his position as the most popular painter in New Zealand. When Thompson showed at the Canterbury Society of Arts A Maori Belle in 1908 (whereabouts unknown) and Aged Warrior in 1910, the titles fell within established categories of the time which tended to idealise young Maori women and celebrate the old timers of the past. Julie King, Sydney Lough Thompson, Home & Abroad, Robert McDougall Art Gallery 1990