 Many prominent Māori chiefs commissioned his work, which accurately records their facial tattoos, clothing, ornaments and weapons.A series of life-size portraits of Maori chiefs and warriors exhibited by Sir Walter Buller at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886, were all from Lindauer's hand, who had made the "Maori at home" a subject of special study.Lindauer's Maori paintings are, like many by Ellen von Meyern and Frances Hodgkins, associated with symbolist portraits of demure females with or without a child.