IDNO

P.87214.

Description

Studio portrait of Ratu Marika Toroca. See P.87349. and P.87211. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003]

A studio portrait of Ratu Marika Toroca, an elderly Christian chief. The bearded man is wearing the courtroom wig, and had been Native Associate Judge of the old Cakobau Government of the early 1870s. He wears an iwabale sash of white masi round his right shoulder and upper arm.
Circa 1875- 1876. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, from record P.4107.ACH1, updated JD 8/11/2011]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Levuka; eastern Vitilevu; Tailevu; Namata

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Ratu Marika Toroca

Photographer

Dufty Brothers, Levuka (Dufty, Francis Herbert)

Collector / Expedition

?von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1875 - 1876

Collection Name

Source

Format

Photomechanical Book Illustration

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.87203 to P.87221 were in the Museum’s paper archive envelope, OA2/5/12, which has now been re-numbered C511/.

Photographer: This seems to have been taken in the Dufty Brothers’ Levuka studio. The painting in the background is particularly distinctive. [Alex Nadin, 30/9/2003]

Photographer: This print was provisionally attributed to “?Dufty Brothers, Levuka”, but a print with the same background, P.87301.VH (compare to the uncropped and unmanipulated print of this image, P.87349.VH) is published on the National Library of Australia website with the attribution to Francis Dufty. Dufty’s Levuka studio is recognisable through the painted studio backdrop to represent a view out a window with shutters (note the knob added to the shutter that casts a shadow). This appears to be a feature of Dufty’s studio throughout the 1870s, although the idealised landscape ‘view’ changes around 1875-1876. The Photographer, Date, and Place fields have been amended accordingly. [JD 16/3/2012]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Program One.