Portrait of young pianist Miss Ada Willetts, taken by her father, professional photographer George Willetts. Ballarat, circa 1890.

A$450 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Albumen print, carte de visite format, 110 x 63 mm (mount); recto of mount imprinted in gold Willetts, Photo., Ballarat ; verso with the decorative back mark of Willetts Photographic Temple of Light, Bridge Street, Ballarat , and with an identifying caption in pencil in contemporaneous hand: Miss Ada Willetts ; the strong albumen print has some mottling in the negative but is otherwise in fine condition, as is the mount. Proud Ballarat professional photographer George Willetts took this artistic portrait of his gifted daughter, budding classical pianist Ada, in his Bridge Street studio around 1889-1890. There are no portraits of Ada Willetts in Australian collections, and this carte de visite is quite possibly unique. George Willetts was born in Gloucester in 1841 and emigrated to Port Phillip with his older sister, Sarah, apparently at some point in the early 1860s. Sarah married Melbourne photographer William Paterson in 1863. In 1866, George married Maria Doyle in Belfast (Port Fairy), western Victoria, and the couple settled in Ballarat, where perhaps inspired and encouraged by his brother-in-law George set himself up as a professional photographer. George and Maria s first child, Ada Marion, was born in Ballarat in 1868. She was the oldest of George and Maria s seven children and had a precocious talent for music. In August and September 1885, at the age of 16, she gave solo recitals at the piano in two concerts at Ballarat s Alfred Hall, performing on the same bill as N

• Binding: Hardcover

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