IDNO

P.87320.VH

Description

On Catalogue Card for duplicate print P.4117.ACH1: “Three men with clubs.” [typed text]

Studio portrait of three Kai Colo or Vitilevu highlanders of the Noiemalu (Wainimala) with traditional hairstyles but wearing their malo loincloths as more modest isulu wrap-around kilts, perhaps in response to the Christianised climate of Levuka. The man at centre wears a white shell necklace. The bearded man at right has the long hair below his ears plaited into long tobe plaits. The youth at right holds a saulaki rootstock club (behind which you can see the foot of a photographer’s clamp), the man at centre holds an iirimasei chief’s fan made from a niumasei (Pritchardia pacifica) palm leaf, the man at left holds a Tongan club which, like the fan, is probably a studio prop.
Circa 1873-1874. See P.87319.VH and P.87320.VH. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, from record P.4117.ACH1, JD 5/11/2011]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto paper.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Levuka; Viti Levu

Cultural Affliation

Kai Colo [historically Big Head Mountaineers]

Named Person

Photographer

Dufty Brothers, Levuka

Collector / Expedition

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Date

circa 1875

Collection Name

Von Hugel Collection

Source

Format

Carte-de-visite; Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Related Image: This print appears to be the original image from which the associated photographs have been derived from. [JD 8/11/2011]

P.87297.VH to P.87320.VH were wrapped in the piece of paper now numbered C512/3/. This envelope came from 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, 12/02/2003]

Photographer: This image was provisionally attributed to “Dufty Brothers, Levuka”, but 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 thorughout the 1870s, although the landscape ‘view’ changes around 1875-1876. The brocade curtain patterned with a floral design framed by a diamond-shaped outline is also distinct to Dufty’s Levuka studio. The Photographer, Date, and Place fields have been amended accordingly. [JD 13/3/2012]

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