Norfolk Id. Pine, Bot: Garden, Sydney (1856-1860)

A$1,400 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Wet plate collodion print, 220 x 265 mm, signed in the negative lower left M. F. Moresby ; mounted on a section cut from a mid-19th-century album leaf (glued at top right and bottom right corners only), with the photographer s caption in ink across the bottom of the image: Norfolk Id. Pine, Bot: Garden, Sydney ; the print has some off-setting and old damp-staining along the left edge and uneven tones at centre and right edge; the mount has old damp-stains at left edge; the verso of the mount is blank. An extremely early Sydney outdoor photograph which possibly dates to as early as 1856 taken in the Botanical Gardens by amateur photographer Matthew Fortescue Moresby, paymaster-in-chief of HMS Iris. From the DAAO: Matthew Fortescue Moresby, sketcher, amateur photographer and clerk, was the second of the three sons of Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby and Eliza Louisa, née Williams, of Bakewell, Derbyshire. Sir Fairfax was commander-in-chief in the Pacific in 1850-53 and all his sons served in the region. The eldest, Fairfax, died in Bass Strait when the brig Sappho was lost in 1858; John (also a gifted sketcher) was the New Guinea explorer after whom Port Moresby is named; and Matthew Fortescue (known as Fortescue or Forty’) was secretary to his father on board HMS Portland in 1852 53. During this period he visited Pitcairn Island several times and enjoyed taking walks over the Island, sketching, talking and singing’. He became very fond of the Pitcairners: truly a more innocent and

• Binding: Hardcover

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