Two photographs of Kanak people, New Caledonia, circa 1875

A$900 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

I. Albumen print photograph, 155 x 210 mm, inscribed in the negative at bottom right Hughan , laid down on its original album page of thick card, the lower margin with contemporary caption in ink: Indigènes de l ile des Pins, Nlle. Calédonie ; the albumen print has slight loss of contrast, but is otherwise in very good condition. A view of a group of 18 indigenous Kanak men, women and children outside a traditional thatched dwelling on the Isle of Pines. II. Albumen print photograph, 140 x 210 mm (probably trimmed at bottom edge and therefore lacking the photographer s name in the negative), laid down on its original album page of thick card, the lower margin with contemporary caption in ink: Une gendarmerie dans la Brousse (Nouvelle-Calédonie), groupe de Kanaks ; the albumen print has a couple of small marks in the sky area at top right, and a short closed tear at right edge (apparently made before the print was mounted), but is otherwise a very strong print in good condition. A view of a colonial police outpost, the French flag flying atop a flagpole improvised from a tall sapling; in the left foreground the photographer has composed a group of proud young Kanak men in a symmetrical arrangement. Allan Hughan was a British merchant and ship s captain who had been shipwrecked in New Caledonia in 1870. By 1871 he had started a commercial photography business in Nouméa, and the following year he was appointed government photographer. In addition to studio portraits his work inc

• Binding: Hardcover

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