A Melbourne family posed outside their mansion (possibly on St. Kilda Road), c.1895.

A$500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Large format silver albumen print, 230 x 285 mm, on photographer s studio mount of brown card with gilt decorative border and imprint: Prof. de Pinna / Melb. ; both the print and the mount are in excellent condition. Relatively little is known about Prof. Francis Frank de Pinna, artist, musician and photographer (1864-1914), although he was the son of a famous father, the Irish-Jewish composer Signor Joseph de Pinna (1798-1885). His interesting professional career in Victoria is undoubtedly worthy of deeper research. He is not listed as a professional photographer in Davies Stanbury s The Mechanical Eye in Australia: photography 1841-1900 , and does not have an entry in the DAAO. Examples of his beautifully designed photographic In Memoriam cards, an area in which he was specialising commercially around 1900, are held in the collections of the State Library of Victoria and Museum Victoria; however, we can trace no other examples of his photographic output in Australian institutional collections. The first mention we find of him is in a wedding notice in The Age, 26 October 1899, which explains a little of his background: DE PINNA CROWLEY. — At St. Francis s R.C. Church, by the Rev. Father Heffernan, Mons. F. de Pinna, son to Sig. Vi. Depinna, Doctor of Music, London and Dublin, to Nellie, youngest daughter of Cornelius Crowley, Esq . We then find him in St. Kilda, offering piano tuition at 1 Princess Terrace, at the very bottom of what is now Fitzroy Street (The Argus, 7 Octo

• Binding: Hardcover

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