A group of twenty-four stereoscopic views of rock formations and other topographical features along the coastline of southwest Victoria, circa 1865.

A$6,500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

[Melbourne : Age Office, circa 1865]. Twenty-four stereoscopic albumen print photographs, each image approximately 80 x 80 mm (arched format), on original yellow card mounts, 90 x 170 mm, versos with original paper labels printed with the series title AUSTRALIAN SCENERY and the photographer s information Chas. Walter. Photographic Artist to The Illustrated Australian News, The Age Office, Melb. Registered. Copyright , together with a serial number and location caption in manuscript in ink; all are strong prints with good tonal range, some examples with light foxing or marks, but overall in very good condition; the mounts are uniformly clean and stable, with the all-important labels intact. An important group of mostly unrecorded photographic views of the Victorian coastline between Cape Otway and Port Campbell, part of the so-called Shipwreck Coast . Aside from their aesthetic value particularly, for example, in the dramatic views of the rock formations we know today as the Twelve Apostles, or of a family collecting fossils on the foreshore, or the views in which we believe the photographer Charles Walter has placed himself in the foreground many of the images potentially contain information of great significance to geological science, since they provide a very early visual record of this coastal environment that can be used to help evaluate the extent to which its physical appearance has been affected by climate (or, indeed, human activity) over the last 150 years. The group

• Binding: Hardcover

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