Museum bids farewell to five masterpieces

THE National Museum and Art Gallery yesterday bid farewell to five masterpieces on loan from the National Museum of Australia for an exhibition in Port Moresby.
The five pieces includes a carved female figure from Gulf, a carved male figure, a canoe prow, a carved wallaby and a carved pig from Milne Bay.
The five pieces were featured with other cultural objects on the Built on Culture Exhibition at the Art Gallery.
Acting director of the museum Dr Andrew Moutu said the priceless objects were part of the Official Papuan Collections collected by the then British New Guinea Lieutenant-Governor Sir Hubert Murray between 1906 and 1940.
“The objects left Papua New Guinea in 1916 to be stored in Australia for safekeeping and scientific research,” he said. “This recent exhibition was the first time in almost 100 years that these artefacts have been in Papua New Guinea and they represent an incredible record of PNG’s past.”
The five pieces were uninstalled and packed by Assistant Registrar of NMA Patrick Baum.
He also gave advice to technical officers of the museum in curating and conserving such objects when they were on loan to other museums.
Baum accompanied the five pieces from Australia to PNG and will be taking them by air back to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.