Melbourne, New South Wales and Ballarat, Australian photographs. Album.
1880 - 1883. Hardcover. 63 large albumen photographs by the renowned British born Australian photographer Nicholas Caire, in a wonderful Australian photograph album, comprising 36 views of Melbourne, 18 of New South Wales, and 9 of Ballarat.
Most pages feature at least one photograph with the name of the town on a label laid down above the image, and a period title written in ink below. These include a number of very interesting photographs with identifying business signage or posters, including one of the partially built new cathedral with its protective construction fence plastered with posters.
Ballarat's Mining Exchange building is another remarkable image depicting some 50 well dressed people posing in the street in front of the building.
Caire (1837 - 1918) worked under the photographer Townsend Duryea; by 1865 he was making images of the Indigenous Australians in Gippsland. In 1867 he opened his first studio in Adelaide, and in 1876 a second studio in Collins Street, Melbourne, focussing on portrait photography. The invention of the dry plate process spurred Caire to take up landscape photography; he set up a new studio in South Yarra and began the landscape photography for which he is renowned.
The Melbourne images include:
1. Queen's Wharf: buildings with carts, ships in the background
2. Queen's Wharf: the dock
3. Bourke Street: Buildings including Mechanic's Hotel
4. Russell Street: W. H. Blakeley Saw Maker
5. Elizabeth Street: Number 82, Tuttle & Co. Loans; Number 80, Brasch Piano Warehouse; Wilson Bes[---] Architects; and C. Carnaby Taylor.
6. Elizabeth Street: James McEwan & Co; McLean Brothers; J. McGuigan Chiropodist; Henry Holloway Watchmaker.
7. Flinders Lane: T. H. Nott Confectioners.
8. Burke & Will's Monument: T. Whitehead & Co., Picture Framers; manufacturers visible in the distance.
9. Flinders Street: Horse cart with sign painted on its side: A. W. Schunkrafft. A busy street scene; dark, very good condition.
10. Collins Street: Looking up the hill. Ferguson & Co.; Balderstone Taylor.
11. Collins Street: Centro Block, with Foster and Martin Photographer; S. Mullen Books.
12. Royal Arcade
13. Hotham Town Hall
14. Mutual Assurance & Co. Offices
15. Government House
16. Treasury Building
17. Fountain in Treasury Gardens
18. Mint
19. Town Hall: blind stamped initials at the lower left corner of the photograph.
20. Town Hall Organ
21. Trinity College
22. Law Court
23. New Cathedral: ca. 1881, under construction with outer fence plastered with posters including E. C. Waddington Photographer.
24. Eastern Markets
25. Fountain at Exhibition
26. Blind Asylum
27. Deaf & Dumb Asylum
28. Alfred Hospital
29. Sailor's Home
30. Presbyterian Church, Kilda
31. New Treasury Hotel
32. Wesley College
33. Independent Chapel
34. Menzie's Hotel
35. Academy of Music
The New South Wales images comprise:
1. The Great Zig Zag: Blue Mountains Railroad
2. Blue Mountains: Blue Mts Railroad track
3. Katoomba Falls
4. Kuapack Gully Viaduct
5. Sydney Theatre Royal: Guild Hall, with sign "Chost Tonight"
6. Cook's Monument
7. Punt on Locklau River
8. Lithgow Valley
9. Sydney Harbour, Lane Cove River
10. Orphan Tower, Katoomba, Blue Mountains
11. Lavender Bay: a boat on shore at low tide
12. Sydney Exhibition
13. Bulli Forest
14. Sydney Harbour, Lane Cove River
15. Wooloomooloo Harbour: J. Ireland, Boats for Hire
16. Scene on Darling River
17. Woolhara
18. General View of Bulli Forest
The Ballarat images comprise:
1. View over mines toward town
2. Band & Albion Claim
3. Benevolent Asylum
4. The Fernery - Botanical Gardens
5. Lake Wendouree: a small ferry departs from the dock, a smelter in the distance.
6. Sturt Street
7. City Hall: A. Crawford on the facade of an adjoining building
8. Bridge Street: Bucks Head Hotel; C. Morris Hatter; F. B. Wilson
9. Mining Exchange: with the full complement of personnel posing in the street in front of the building; Greville's Hotel visible down the hill.
Oblong 4to album, 12 1/2 x 10". Three quarter brown leather and brown moire cloth; spine with gilt decorated raised bands, not titled. The majority of the images measure roughly 8 x 5 3/4"; a few in oval format, 7 x 5".
A lovely album, the images mostly clean and crisp, with some light foxing on some of the pages. Very good condition. Item #23893
Price: $2,750.00