Thomas J. Nevin | Tasmanian Photographer: The lion and unicorn studio stamp

Seated man with boater, and verso with government insignia

Photo by T. J. Nevin ca. 1874 , scans courtesy of

The subject of this carte is unidentified. His clothes and bearing suggest he was a free settler functioning in an official position. The boater hat suggests summertime, Regatta Day, or a weekend visit to the photographer.

The decor in this studio set-up differs from Nevin's cartes dated ca. 1871. The carpet's pattern here shows rows of small squares, and not the chain and lozenge patterned carpet of the 1871 portraits.The painted wallhanging is not the representation of an Italianate vista from a tiled terrace but an open dormer window with a lowland view.

The table, however, with its carved legs and head of a griffin, bird, snake or phoenix perhaps, also appears in Thomas Nevin's portraits of a woman sitting next to vase of tinted flowers, and a young man standing next to a stereoscopic viewer which sits on the same table.

The studio stamp on the verso of the portrait (above) carries the government's official insignia with lion and unicorn rampant. And unlike other types of studio stamps which Nevin used between 1867 and 1884, this particular version carries the middle initial "J" in his name: "T.J. Nevin". The same stamp appears on the verso of T. J. Nevin's portrait of convict William Smith held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston:

Convict William Smith per Gilmore (3), transported 20th August, 1843.

Photo by T. J. Nevin, held at the QVMAG, Launceston.

The photograph of the man with a boater can probably be dated between 1873 and 1879 when Thomas Nevin was contracted by the Attorney-General W.R. Giblin to photograph the inmates at the Port Arthur penitentiary on their transfer to the Hobart Gaol, and used a version of this insignia as a stamp on the verso of several convict cartes (Long, 1995:36).

Tasmanian Prison Act 1868 with lion and unicorn insignia

The Tasmanian Prison Act 1868 with the lion and unicorn insignia:

Consolidation and Amendation of the Tasmanian Prison Act 1868, printed by James Barnard.

Source: eHeritage database, State library of Tasmania

Adelaide photographer Townsend Duryea used the same lion and unicorn rampant government insignia on the verso of his cartes between 1863 and 1869. His commissions included the visit of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 1868. The earlier carte, ca 1863, bears the simple insignia, while the later one bears a variation of the wording which Nevin used with his government stamp: "Photographic Artist" (Nevin) "Artist Photographer" (Duryea):

Courtesy of the R.J. Noye Collection, Gallery of South Australia

Photographer Henry Hall Baily, a close associate of Thomas Nevin, used a variation of the lion and unicorn insignia on his studio stamp with the words, "Under the Patronage of His Excellency Sir G. C. Strahan", and the initials "K.C.M.G" beneath. Neither lion nor unicorn is rampant - each has the head turned away from the Crown!

STRAHAN, Sir George C. Governor Major, KCMG 7, held the office between December 1881 and 28th October 1886, which indicates that Baily assumed government patronage some time after Nevin's in the mid-1870s. Baily's earlier studio stamps ca. 1870s on the verso of portraits taken at his Elizabeth Street studio - which was directly opposite Nevin's City Photographic Establishment - lack the lion and unicorn insignia.