This image is from a leather photograph album dating to the late 1800s. The album contains sepia prints of a voyage from Melbourne to Sydney on SS ARAMAC as well as various sights around Sydney Harbour and the Hawkesbury River. The provenance of the album and the identity of the photographer is unknown.
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Object number 00036455_28
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Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons
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BeachcomberAustralia
Instantly reminds me of Tom Roberts' "Christmas Flowers and Christmas Belles" c.1899 (Manly Art Gallery) - www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=46482 . Especially if you flip the photo horizontally.
pellethepoet
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia] "It was revealed with the aid of blue light that the artist had removed a standing woman and running child in the area left of centre of the painting. The removed figures can still be seen in the lithograph issued in the Sydney Mail in 1899 which the gallery has a copy. You may still be able to see the ghostly remnants of the figures in the painting." - www.manlyartgallerycollections.com.au/artists_m_-_t_25.html
BeachcomberAustralia
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/pellethepoet] That's interesting - I found the Sydney Mail lithograph version here - www.joseflebovicgallery.com/catalogue/cl_134_2009/Large/1... - from www.joseflebovicgallery.com/catalogue/cl_134_2009/pages/p...
pellethepoet
BeachcomberAustralia
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/pellethepoet] Do you think they might be daffodils? Or just using your poetic licence! I was thinking the "wild flowers" in the title implies something like flannel flowers or chrysanthemums etc. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia/1513992005/]
BeachcomberAustralia
Same bit of Pitt Street in 1878, about twenty years earlier - [http://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/4688966129/]
BeachcomberAustralia
GoogleMapsStreetView - goo.gl/maps/cvgIS
pellethepoet
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia] No, I don't think they're daffodils, but the poem is about flower sellers in the streets of Sydney and is contemporary with the photo, so I thought it fitting.
pellethepoet
Thomson, Gates & Co., tailors and outfitters, 185 Pitt Street. The Sydney Stock and Station Journal, Friday 16 December 1898, p. 5:
- trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/120768723
Became Thomson, Son & Co. in February 1903 (trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/121540543). Temporarily removed to 30 Moore Street in August 1903 (trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/121544490), whilst rebuilding Pitt Street site, reopening "back on the old wicket" in December 1903 (trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/113793731).
BeachcomberAustralia
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/pellethepoet] Ho! Fitting indeed! Good find with the Thomson Gates & Co. advert. It took me a while to find out the exact location because none of those buildings is still standing in the Pitt Street Mall. Also I just worked out that the Tom Roberts painting is in King Street (looking east between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets), very close to this image. Obvious when you see the Theatre Royal awning, the back of a cable tram dead centre, and the domes and minarets in the distance compared with contemporary photos ( I can't yet find an exact match). The various artspeak blurbs don't seem to mention it is King Street, so I am chuffed with myself and having another bowl of ice-cream to celebrate! eg Manly Gallery's almost classic artspeak - "Tom Roberts Christmas flowers and Christmas Belles (The flower sellers) displays his heartfelt concern for Australian subjects by evocatively depicting the vitality of an Australian city main thoroughfare. By sharply contrasting the sun bleached ochre tonality of the street with the dark figures of the flower sellers he successfully portrays Australia’s summer mid afternoon sun." The clock says 12:25 ! [end of rant]
Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia] [http://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia] Lovely to return on a Monday morning to find these kinds of exchanges :) The Tom Roberts painting is very beautiful, I love it as a compliment to our image!