IDNO

P.99856.VH

Description

Labelled “Rokotui Ba”, but actually Ratu Marika Toroca. See P.87211, P.87349.VH. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

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]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

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

von Hügel Collection

Source

von Hügel, Anatole (Baron)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.99726.VH to P.100050.VH were in the belted folder now numbered C539/3/. This was formerly kept in paper archive Large Box G; VH1/4/5. It has now been transferred to the photo archive. The lists describing the contents of this box have been returned to the Paper Archive.

Photographer: This print was provisionally attributed to “?Dufty Brothers, Levuka”, but the original uncropped and unmanipulated print, P.87349.VH, has the same background as the print, P.87301.VH, which 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 Fund. [A. Nadin, 10/9/2003]