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An album containing mounted prints of various sizes, most prints captioned in an ornate script. The album contains photographs from Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia, and is split into some what haphazard sections, thus:
1-50 Sydney and the Blue Mountains
51-66 Newcastle and its Collieries
67-89 Buildings and scenery in and around Sydney
90-104 New Zealand scenes: Auckland, Wellington and Rotomahana
105 Aborigines in New South Wales
106-124 Studio pictures of aborigines, and scenery (uncaptioned)
125-175 Victoria and South Australia
176-178 New Caledonia
179-188 Tasmania
189 New Caledonia
190-199 Brisbane
200-203 New Caledonia
What makes this odder is that the album was obviously an extensive undertaking and compiled with some care. Possibly prints were inserted as batches became available. Whether this was a commercial production or a presentation album is unclear, but certainly great trouble has been taken with the calligraphy of the captions - not only are they written with elaborate flourishes and curlicues, but often also in a coyly old-fashioned manner, e.g., 'Ye Bush of Australia,' 'Railway over ye Blue mountains,' etc. Whatever the albums purpose, it forms a valuable document of the period, with some fine cityscapes and some superb studies of natives in Australia and New Caledonia.
The identity of the photographers is unknown unless stated. Certain well-known photographers' works are included in the album, for instance, J.W. Lindt's portraits of aborigines, James Bragge's panoramas of Wellington, and the Burton Brothers' photographs of the hot springs of Rotomahana, but the majority of the pictures are not attributed to anyone.
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