Studio portrait of Nellie Handfield, aged 11 years. Melbourne, 1875; [together with] a second portrait of Nellie around the age of 3, taken in Williamstown, circa 1867.

A$300 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

I. Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 102 x 62 mm (mount); verso with the imprint of T. F. Chuck, Photographer to His Excellency the Governor, the Trustees of the National Gallery, and Prize Medalist, London Exhibition 1874. Royal Arcade, London Portrait Gallery, Melbourne , and with a fully contemporary inscription in ink identifying the sitter as Nellie Handfield, 11 years, 1875 ; both the print and mount are in excellent condition. II. Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 98 x 62 mm (mount); verso with the elaborate imprint (in the form of a ship s mast) of A. Rider, Williamstown, Photo Artist, Prize Medallist Intercolonial Exhibition 1866 , and with a fully contemporary inscription in pencil (quite faded) Miss Handfield ; the print has some very light foxing, but the mount is clean and stable. These two cartes de visite were sourced together in an album that had been compiled by a member of one of the branches of the Handfield family of Melbourne in the second half of the nineteenth century. They are both studio portraits of Nellie Handfield (b. 1864, Melbourne). The earlier one, by the maritime photographer Rider of Williamstown, shows her around the age of three, while the later one shows Nellie grown into a confident and intelligent-looking young girl aged 11. Nellie was the first child (and only daughter she was followed by six boys) of Lieutenant Frederick Oliver Handfield a naval lieutenant who had served on the expedition of HMCSS Victor

• Binding: Hardcover

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