IDNO

P.87253.VH

Description

A F.H. Dufty bird’s-eye view of Government House, Nasova, near Levuka, Ovalau, in 1875 or 1876, taken from the hill behind. Also shown are the jetty, complete with side enclosure to screen the nudity of the gentlemen when they went bathing, all agog for fear of sharks, from the shore, flanked by a Tongan-style volau boatshed for the governor’s boat. Plus the rara or ceremonial ground, with its flag-staff and fringe of vale, including one western Vitilevu house with its conical or beehive shaped roof, built atop a tall, stone-faced yavu mound, indicative of high status and suggesting that this building was used as some form of formal meeting house. Note that, as with Ratu Cakobau’s volau at Bau, the projecting ends of the ridge-pole of the volau boathouse have been covered in white cowry shells or bulidina, symbolic of both sacredness and authority, the two being even more inseparable from a Fijian than from an English viewpoint of the day. The rigged boat propped up on a slipway directly in front of the house is probably that which Captain Knollys, the A.D.C., had built for him. [Fergus Clunie, 26/7/2003]

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Near Levuka; Nasova

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

1875 - 1876

Collection Name

Von Hugel Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White

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/.

Publication: A copy of this print is published in ‘The Fiji Journals of Baron Anatole Von Hugel 1875 - 1877’, edited by Jane Roth and Steven Hooper (1990), plate 19a, page 103. [A Nadin, 2/7/2003]

Related Image: This commercial photograph appears more than once in the MAA Collections. There is no original negative. [JD 11/1/2012]

Related Image: Same image held at the Royal Collection Trust, reference Albumen print | RCIN 2580918, and captioned as: "Nasova, Fiji 1881.
Photograph taken looking down on Government House and its grounds from high up a mountain; people visible on lawn.
Provenance - The Album 'Cruise of H.M.S. Bacchante 1879-1882. Volume IV, Australia, Fiji' was compiled by the Reverend J N Dalton (1839-1931) and presented to King George V." [Source: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/22/collection/2580908/fijian-police-nasova, JD 04/04/2017]

Biographical Information: Reverend (later Canon) John Neale Dalton KCVO CMG (24 September 1839 Margate, Kent – 28 July 1931) was a Church of England clergyman and author. He was a chaplain to Queen Victoria, a Canon of Windsor, and tutor and chaperone / companion to the future King George V and his brother Prince Albert Victor from c.1869 until 1882. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Neale_Dalton, JD 4/5/2017]


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