Travel, Landscape and Architecture

E Becker
Macassar
(Street band, Singapore) c.1890s
Gelatin silver photograph
Purchased 2010 with funds from
the Henry and Amanda Bartlett
Trust through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

In 1871, British photographer and physician Richard Leach Maddox (1816–1902) invented the dry-plate technique, by which a negative image is created on a glass plate coated with a dried light-sensitive emulsion of gelatin and silver salts. Three years later, a paper coated with gelatin silver solution was developed, which allowed paper photographs to be made from dry-plate glass negatives. These gelatin silver papers revolutionised photography. They were ‘developing out’, rather than ‘printing-out’ papers; in other words, the paper registered a latent image that only became visible when developed in a chemical bath. Photographers no longer needed to coat their own paper just prior to exposure – they now had access to commercially-prepared papers. From the 1880s until the advent of digital photography, the gelatin silver print was in widespread use, and its rich tonal qualities made it the photographic paper of choice for the majority of modern art photographers.

Unknown
Burma
Burma, durian sellers c.1880s
Albumen photograph
Purchased 2010 with funds from the
Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust
through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Daniel Marquis
Scotland/Australia 1829–79
(Studio portraits of Indigenous groups) c.1865
Gold-toned albumen photograph
Purchased 1994
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Daniel Marquis set up a photographic studio in George Street, Brisbane, around 1865, becoming one of the earliest portrait photographers to do so. These images are among the first Marquis took after arriving in Brisbane from his native Scotland and, significantly, this era intersects with the British colonial period in Australia and South-East Asia. Contributing to larger debates about colonialism, modernity and the construction of national histories, these photographs (together with all the others on this wall) demonstrate how the interest shown in photographing Indigenous peoples at this time varied, from the scientific or ethnographic document to highly stylised and creative compositions. Most likely produced for the late nineteenth-century European tourist market – which was desirous of ‘authentic’ images of other cultures – these photographs demonstrate the powerful influence of photography in people’s lives.

Daniel Marquis
Scotland/Australia 1829–79
(Studio portraits of Indigenous groups) c.1865
Gold-toned albumen photograph
Purchased 1994
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Unknown
Australia
Queensland natives c.1890s
Albumen photograph
Purchased 2003.Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

attrib. Shuzaburo Usui
Japan
(Oiran (courtesan)) c.1887
Large format hand-coloured albumen photograph,
laid down on album page board
Purchased 2010 with funds from the
Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust
through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Young lady wearing hakama kimono mid 1870s

Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz
Austria 1839–1911, active Japan 1871–1910
(Young lady wearing hakama kimono) (from 'Japan' album)
mid 1870s
Hand-coloured albumen photograph, laid down on board
(originally bound in an album)
Purchased 2010 with funds from the
Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust
through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

In 1872, Austrian-born painter and photographer – and sometime diplomat and reporter – Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz established Stillfried & Co., a hugely successful photographic studio in Yokohama, Japan. The company became Stillfried & Anderson in 1875 and operated for a further decade, during which time Stillfried-Ratenicz bought the studio and stock of Felice Beato (1832–1909). Beato was a pioneer in his extensive photographic documentation of Japan and China, and the influence of his documentary photographs can be seen in Stillfried-Ratenicz’s hand-coloured portraits and genre scenes. Unlike Beato, however, Stillfried-Ratenicz’s images of traditional Japanese life were imbued with a sentimentality designed to appeal to the growing European tourism market, which, in the late nineteenth century, desired images of a ‘timeless’ Japan.

Baron Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz
Austria 1839-1911, active Japan 1871-1910
(Geisha) (from 'Japan' album) mid 1870s
Hand-coloured albumen photograph,
on board (originally bound in an album)
Purchased 2010 with funds from the
Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust through
the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Unknown
Australia
Giant fig tree c.1890
Albumen photograph
Purchased 2005. The Queensland Government's special Centenary Fund
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Just as industrial progress was being made and celebrated, nostalgia for the pre-industrial age engendered a new cult of nature in the late nineteenth century. In 1872, Yellowstone – the world’s first officially sanctioned national park – was established in the United States. As forested land was being cleared for agricultural use and urbanisation, the conservation of the environment became a way of ensuring that city dwellers had places to escape from the pressures of urban life. Trees and waterfalls became common subjects for photographers. Attracted to subjects evoking awe as ‘natural wonders’, photographers produced picturesque landscapes in imitation of painting.

Unknown
Australia
Barron Falls, Cairns railway c.1895
Gelatin silver photograph
Purchased 2005. The Queensland Government's special Centenary Fund
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Unknown
Ceylon
Sensation Rock, Colombo-Kandy line (Ceylon) c.1880s
Albumen photograph
Purchased 2010 with funds from the
Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

John Henry Mills
England/Australia 1851–1919
1st loco in Mackay [illeg.] in scrub at Pioneer Mountain 1900
Printing-out paper photograph
Purchased 2002. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Printing-out paper (‘POP’) was photographic paper from which an image could be made from a negative by exposure to light alone, rather than requiring further chemical-based development. While albumen prints were also ‘printed-out’, generally the term POP refers to commercially manufactured gelatin silver papers available from the 1880s until the late 1920s.

John Henry Mills co-founded the Queensland Photographic Company in 1876. This photograph, taken in the Pioneer Valley of present-day Eungella National Park in the Mackay hinterland, records an important episode in Queensland’s history – the introduction of regional railways and the opening up of the state to further settlement. Photographs of railways and other heavy industry, such as shipbuilding, were common subjects for nineteenth-century photographers. Pictorial representations of railways intersecting the landscape complemented the modern age’s triumphal pragmatism and perceived dominance over an unruly natural environment, as well as its underlying fascination with machinery.

Unknown photographers
Active India 1880–90s
(Photographs collected in India by a travelling theatre group) c.1880–1900
Albumen and gelatin silver photographs (originally bound in three albums)
Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

These photographs were collected by a member of the Williams family theatre group, which toured India in 1899–1900. Acquired from studios and commissioned from photographers active in India at the time, including John Burke and Thomas Rust, these images documented people, architecture and landscapes, including botanical gardens and street scenes in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), the temples and mausoleums of Lahore, the nandi (bull) monument in Mysore, and social occasions, such as the one captioned ‘Lady Northcote seated beside the princess of Bhor’. Made at a time when travel was becoming increasingly popular, these images reveal the European tourist’s fascination with wondrous foreign subjects. Handwritten titles and captions by the collector provide a personal travelogue giving insights into the experience of the travelling group.

Unknown photographers
Active India 1880–90s
(Photographs collected in India by a travelling theatre group) c.1880–1900
Albumen and gelatin silver photograph (originally bound in three albums)
Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Unknown photographers
Active India 1880–90s
(Photographs collected in India by a travelling theatre group) c.1880–1900
Albumen and gelatin silver photograph (originally bound in three albums)
Purchased 2011, Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Richard Daintree
England/Australia 1832–78
(Open forest country) (no. 1 from 'Images of Queensland' series) c.1870
Autotype
Purchased 2009 with funds raised through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 30th Anniversary Appeal
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

The autotype process, invented in 1864 by British physicist and chemist Joseph Wilson Swan (1828–1914), enabled the printing of carbon prints on a commercially-viable scale. The carbon print, patented in 1855 by French photographer, engineer and chemist Alphonse Louis Poitevin (1819–1882), contained no silver impurities – causing images to deteriorate – making the prints extremely stable.

Richard Daintree, the English-born pastoralist and geologist in charge of surveying north Queensland, was responsible for some of the finest photographic images ever taken of colonial Queensland. When Queensland was invited to participate in the London International Exhibition of 1871, Daintree proposed attracting potential investors to the colony by staging an exhibition combining his collected geological specimens with photographs of rural Queensland. These beautifully composed images, which comprise part of the portfolio ‘Images of Queensland’, reveal Daintree’s exceptional talent for photography.

Richard Daintree
England/Australia 1832-78
(Western prairie country) (no. 5 from 'Images of Queensland' series) c.1870
Autotype
Purchased 2009 with funds raised through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 30th Anniversary Appeal
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Richard Daintree
England/Australia 1832-78
(Open forest country) (no. 11 from 'Images of Queensland' series) c.1870
Autotype
Purchased 2009 with funds raised through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 30th Anniversary Appeal
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Richard Daintree
England/Australia 1832-78
(Open forest country)(no. 11 from 'Images of Queensland' series) c.1870
Autotype
Purchased 2009 with funds raised through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 30th Anniversary Appeal
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Government House and domain, from the top of the parliamentary buildings c.1874–79

G.P. Wright
Australia c.1815–1891
Government House and domain,
from the top of the parliamentary buildings
(from 'Brisbane illustrated' portfolio) c.1874–79
Albumen photograph, laid down on card
Purchased 2005
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

George Parkinson Wright had a number of photographic studios in Brisbane in the late nineteenth century. He ran a studio in James Street, Fortitude Valley between 1874 and 1878 before moving to Creek Street in 1879, then Elizabeth Street (in 1882) and, finally, to Roma Street in 1883.

Wright photographed views of Brisbane landmarks, which were custom bound into albums for sale. Wright's surviving albums are varied in their contents, suggesting that prints were individually selected by the customer in Wright’s studio before being bound. These photographs, which constitute part of the ‘Brisbane illustrated’ portfolio, provide a compelling insight into the general public’s interest in contemporary architecture and botanical gardens in the 1870s, and reflect the taste of the purchasers of the albums as much as Wright’s pictorial point of view.

The fountain and terra cottas, Acclimatization Society, Bowen Park c.1874-79

G.P. Wright
Australia c.1815-1891
The fountain and terra cottas,
Acclimatization Society, Bowen Park
(from 'Brisbane illustrated' portfolio) c.1874-79
Albumen photograph, laid down on card
Purchased 2005
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Tropical foliage - the island, Botanic Gardens c.1874-79

G.P. Wright
Australia c.1815-1891
Tropical foliage - the island, Botanic Gardens
(from 'Brisbane illustrated' portfolio) c.1874-79
Albumen photograph, laid down on card
Purchased 2005
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Cocos plumosa palm, the Curator's cottage, &c., Botanic Gardens c.1874-79

G.P. Wright
Australia c.1815-1891
Cocos plumosa palm, the Curator's cottage, &c., Botanic Gardens
(from 'Brisbane illustrated' portfolio) c.1874-79
Albumen photograph, laid down on card
Purchased 2005
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

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