[MELBOURNE] “Rosebank”, residence of Thomas Napier Esq., 1866.

A$750 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Albumen print from a wet-plate collodion negative, 240 x 300 mm, laid down on its original card mount (removed from a frame at some point), with a contemporary inscription in pencil across the bottom edge of the mount: Rose Bank. Residence of Thos. Napier Esq. 1866 ; the print has some fading at the edges, but is otherwise in excellent condition; the verso of the mount still has strips of paper waste around the edges taken from the Melbourne Argus newspaper, 8 September 1866 (giving a terminus ante quem latest possible date for when the image was taken). An uncommonly large format print for the mid 1860s, this wonderful view of Thomas Napier s grand residence Rosebank , taken by an unidentified photographer, must surely be one of the earliest surviving photographic views taken in the Essendon district. It is also q uite possibly a unique image we have not been able to trace another example. The house s top-hatted owner can be seen in the front garden immediately below the fluttering flag, and several other family members or acquaintances of the Napiers stand on the upstairs and ground-floor verandahs and in the garden on the right. Rosebank is located in Rosebank Avenue, Strathmore, behind the St. Vincent s Catholic Church. It is now the Convent of the Sisters of Charity. The original Rosebank house was built by Thomas Napier, the earliest European resident of the area that was to become Strathmore. He built the house on what was then known as Napier Hill circa 1845 and lived

• Binding: Hardcover

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