IDNO

P.99945.VH

Description

P.99940.VH - P.99945.VH: P.99940.VH is a studio portrait of Ratu Timoce Tavanavanua, second son of Ratu Cakobau and Yadi Samanunu of Bau. See P.99849.VH.
The others, in mixed order, are the same gentry as in P.99931.VH, q.v. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Five studio portraits of Fijian chiefly men or youths. All early to mid 1870s.
a. Youth of Tokatoka, Rewa, SE Vitilevu. See P.99964.VH.
[Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, from record P.99931.VH, updated JD 22/1/2012]

Cropped F.H. Dufty studio portrait of a youthful chief of Tokatoka, Rewa, southeast Vitilevu. Apart from a beaded necklet, he has an heirloom vorovoro necklace of white Ovula costellata egg-cowry shells, made from paired chiefly throat pendants that have had their tops stove in and which have been strung together through their mouth slits, round his neck. [See F.Clunie, ‘Yalo i Viti’, 1986, artefact 105 and notes on pp.158-9 for the implications of this ornament]. He is dressed for ceremony or war, with a pandanus leaf liku covering his malo loincloth (which is girded high up under his ribs in the challenging malowala manner) from the hips down, and a fringed white barkcloth iwabale or shoulder sash. His calf muscles are braced with fringed and beaded vesa wrappings, braided from the wiry runners of the waloa or sausauwai, a rhizomorphoid fungus, and he is holding a musket or rifle bayonet. Note the cicatrices on upper left arm. Against the wall in the background leans a studio prop in the form of a Tongan club that appears in other Dufty portraits of the time, including P.4117.ACH1 and P.87351.VH. See P.99945.VH and P.99931.VH.
Circa 1875-1876. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003, from record P.99964.VH, JD 22/1/2012]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Levuka; southeast Vitilevu; Rewa; Tokatoka

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Dufty, Francis Herbert (Dufty Brothers, Levuka)

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 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]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund. [A. Nadin, 29/9/2003]