New Zealand | Album of early photographs, drawings, watercolours and ephemera, 1860s

New Zealand

Album of early photographs including portraits of named Maori, with drawings, watercolours and ephemera compiled by a young lady in New Zealand, circa 1867-1870

4to (265 x 210mm.), 17 albumen prints (from 100 x 155mm. to 155 x 200mm., or the reverse) of views in New Zealand (2 loose), 3 carte-de-visite Maori portraits, 2 carte-de-visite views, 7 watercolour and pencil drawings of landscapes and houses, together with other printed and manuscript verse and other material, contemporary red morocco gilt, flat spine gilt, gilt edges, one photograph detached at corner, some stains and occasional wear, binding slightly rubbed

A fine album containing three rare 1860s carte-de-visite photographs of identified Maori, one of two Maori women (named on the reverse) by J.D. Wrigglesworth of Wellington, and two portraits of Paora Parau, a Maori chief from Poverty Bay who served in the native contingent of the military. The other photographs show views of Nelson, Maitai Valley, Te Ore Ore in Wairapa, and a house in St Kilda. Several photographs are by Burton Brothers, and three are by C. Gill of Nelson. 

In addition to the photographs are several drawings and watercolours including views and houses, presumably by Miss Flaxman, items of Victorian chromolithography, manuscript verse including a “Maori acrostic,” lines by Miss Flaxman’s friends, and poems by Poe, Browning, Tennyson, and others.

PROVENANCE:

Miss Flaxman, presentation inscription to her dated Nov. 23rd. 1867 (the album was probably a birthday gift); inscribed by Mrs. Underwood (née Flaxman) to her daughter Janet Helen Underwood and dated Bairnsdale, 1899.