Studio portrait of a lady in mourning resting her hand on a plinth. Hamilton, Victoria, 1863-6.

A$90 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 106 x 62 mm; verso imprinted Photographed by J. C. A. Kruger ; the print has some surface scratches toward the the top edge, but is otherwise in good condition; the mount is toned and has some light stains on the verso. From contemporary newspaper notices we can piece together a rudimentary biography of J. C. A. Kruger, a little-known pioneer photographer of Victoria s Western District. We learn he was a German immigrant residing in Warrnambool from at least the early 1850s; his purchase of a land allotment in the town is recorded in October 1854. Almost ten years later, in August 1863, he was still in Warrnambool when the marriage of his second daughter, Julie Ida, to Peter Jacobsen, of Germantown, near Geelong, took place. Later that year, however, Kruger relocated to Hamilton, the prosperous wool centre of the Western District, where he placed his first advertisement as a professional photographer in the Hamilton Spectator and Grange District Advertiser , on 6 November 1863: PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTICE. Mr. J. .C. A KRUGER, Photographic Artist, begs respectfully to inform the Ladies and Gentlemen of Hamilton and surrounding district, that he has taken the premises formerly occupied as the Spectator Printing Office, Gray Street, and will open his photographic rooms for taking likenesses on paper (carte de visite) and on glass, by the beginning of November next . In the same newspaper, on 26 February 1864, Kruger placed the following

• Binding: Hardcover

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