IDNO

P.87243.VH

Description

F.H. Dufty studio carte-de-visite photograph of a Fijian chief, ‘Moses’, dressed for dance or ceremony, and his wife. He has cock tail feathers in his hair, a white bead necklace, and is wearing a fringed white barkcloth iwabale shoulder sash, a broad white barkcloth waist sash over his malo loincloth and a black likusausauwai with a striped pandanus leaf streamer fringe, and has black vesasausauwai leg wrappings, fringed with trade beads. His club is a kiakavo.
She appears to be of mixed Samoa - Tonga or similar Polynesian and Fijian ancestry. Her oiled wavy hair is tied up and dressed in some approximation of a European hairstyle, and ornamented with a hairband and what looks like a peacock feather plume, and a bunch of striped and frazzled pandanus or coconut leaf streamers. Long ear-drops dangle from her ears. Her tightly collared blouse is in contrast to the usual off-the-shoulder vinivoa. For an isulu, she is wearing an elaborately fringed plaid travel rug or large shawl, secured by a waist sash. Note the bases of the photographers’ clamps - one plain, the other ornately cast.
Circa 1875-1876. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003, updated JD 20/1/2012]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; ?Samoa; ?Tonga; Ovalau Island; Levuka; Rewa

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Moses

Photographer

Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1875 - 1876

Collection Name

Von Hugel Collection

Source

Format

Carte-de-visite; Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.87222.VH to P.87277.VH were found loose in the Museum’s paper archive envelope, VH1/4/7, which has now been re-numbered C512/.

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 the image is recognisable as Dufty’s Levuka studio 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]

Named Person: The man is named as “Mosese [Moses], a Rewa man” in P.99907.VH. [JD 20/1/2012]

Related Image: This print or negative appears to be a unique image within the MAA Photograph Collections. [JD 22/12/2011]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Program One. [A Nadin, 2/7/2003]