IDNO

P.99976.VH

Description

F.H. Dufty studio portrait of a man in Christian war or ceremonial dress, with two bunches of flowers in his hair and with a black liku overskirt masking his darkly smoked malo loincloth from the hips down. His arm and leg wrappings or vesa are braided from the runners of the wiry waloa or sausauwai, a rhizomorphoid fungus that grows on sodden rotting wood. He is holding a heavy gadi club. Note the photographer’s clamp.
Circa 1875-1876. [Fergus Clunie, 14/7/2003]

Physical Condition: Print mounted onto card.

Place

Oceania Polynesia; Fiji; Ovalau Island; Levuka

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: Dufty’s Levuka studio is recognisable through the use of the sideboard with darker decorative scroll work and leaves? added to the plainer and paler base (see P.4920.ACH1 for same? sideboard undecorated). The sideboard is normally positioned to the left, and often appears with an ornate wooden box? on top. This configuration of studio props appears to be used by Dufty between circa 1875 - 1876. The Photographer, Date, and Place fields have been amended accordingly. [JD 13/3/2012]

Related Image: This print or negative appears to be a unique image within the MAA Photograph Collections. [JD 27/1/2012]

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund. [A. Nadin, 13/10/2003]