[ABORIGINES] Diorama of a bush scene, South Australian Court, Melbourne International Exhibition

A$650 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Albumen print photograph, 210 x 285 mm, laid down on its original album leaf of thin card; no photographer s imprint; the albumen print is in good condition with excellent tonal range, a small surface blemish to the right of the Aboriginal figures in lower left corner, and some fading towards the upper and right margins; the mount with a few light marks; verso with a smaller format albumen print (probably also of the interior of the Exhibition Building), showing a display of jewellery in cabinets, including one case with printed sign reading . .. of the Hanau jewellers . Another view of the same scene, taken from a slightly different angle, is held in the collection of Museum Victoria, as part of an album of sixty-one photographs of the Melbourne Exhibition of 1880-81 presented by the Trustees of the Exhibition to its Assistant Secretary, Thomas B. Hill. It is believed that the photographer Ludovico Hart was given a private commission by the Trustees to photograph the exhibition. The similar view in the Hill album has a printed caption, 49. South Australian Court. Bush Scene . The diorama, which features two life-size wax models of a male and female Aborigine dressed in kangaroo or possum skin cloaks, is remarkably similar to a diorama sent by the Colony of Victoria to the London Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. The two Aboriginal figures are positioned outside a mia-mia, with a small group of traditional implements scattered on the ground. Opposite the mia-mia is a se

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.