ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with aestheticism as it was located in material culture, and by extension, seeks to offer a gendered reading of the Victorian settler home. Louisa Alice Baker's careful use of aestheticism and celebration of beauty underpins women's place in the antipodal House Beautiful. Focusing on the beautification of the home in the Victorian settler novel brings attention to the domestic sphere and the role of women in late nineteenth-century New Zealand, and thus helps to understand the construction and strengthening of New Zealand's cultural identity through the development of a colonial domestic aesthetic. The craft paradigm as it pertains to reading women's place in the home in Victorian literature is well documented by Talia Schaffer, who argues that the domestic handicraft testified to the woman's skill in management, thrift, industry, and ornamental talent. The colonial environment, where a Protestant political economy promoted self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, amplified the Victorian thrift ethic.
