The red and green tinted sprigs and Wm Maguire

Several carte-de-visite portraits from the 1870s bear a daub of red and green representing a flower, perhaps a sprig of holly to signify a portrait taken at Christmas. Two of the three colored examples here were taken by Thomas J. Nevin; the third, of William Maguire, is variously attributed to Charles A.Woolley (at the TMAG), or unattributed (at the SLtas). These three portraits may be related, possibly because the young man whose age is tentatively given as 22 yrs, and the teenage girl may have been a married couple, the baby being their child.



The carte-de-visite full-length studio portrait of William Maguire was on display within the extensive exhibition of Islands to Ice: The Great Southern Ocean and Antarctica held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (2007). The sprig daubed red and green is visible on his left-hand lapel.



Full length image and detail showing sprig (TMAG)
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Collection
Ref: Q9462
ITEM NAME: photograph:
MEDIUM: Albumen silver carte de visite,
MAKER: C A Woolley [Artist];
TITLE: 'William John Maguire of the whaler "Aladdin" ran away to sea as cabin boy age 12 yrs'
DATE: c.1878



A copy of the same photograph is held at the State Library, but the date is 1870 and not 1878,and unattributed.



STATE LIBRARY OF TASMANIA
Title: Mr. William John Maguire
Creator(s):Unknown Date: 1870
Description: 1 photographic print mounted on right hand of a folded cardboard mount : 
b&w ; 17 x 11 cm. ; on mount 20 x 13 cm.
Notes: Exact measurements: 163 x 102 mm.,
Title inscribed on inside cover of folded mount., Mr. William John Maguire ... ?22 - Brig Velocity (Whaler) owner Dr. W.L. Crowther - died young of consumption - Dressed in Regatta Day outfit.,
Condition at Oct. 2002: Minor dirt marks and spotting on image particularly in lower right hand . Overall condition is very good.
Location: W.L. Crowther LibraryADRI: AUTAS001126073493

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
The child and teenage girl photographed by Nevin may have been William Maguire's young family, the photographs retained by his family because of his early death from consumption.The portraits were eventually purchased by the current private collectors. The connection of the name "Maguire" to Thomas Nevin is evident on the marriage registration form of his sister-in-law, Mary Sophia Day to Charles Hector Axup, on 1st May 1878. A witness was "Margaret Maguire". . . If this is correct, then the date of the TMAG portrait of William Maguire (son? husband? brother? of Margaret) set at 1878, may be correct.




Above: child holding a sprig, daubed red and green
Portrait by T.J. Nevin, ca. 1873
From © The Lucy Batchelor Collection 2009 ARR [PC]



Above: teenage girl holding a sprig, daubed red and green, ca. 1874
Portrait inscribed verso with the transcription "Clifford & Nevin, Hobart Town"
From © The G.T. Harrisson Collection 2006 ARR [PC]



The poses are identical and mirror each other. The connection of Nevin to Woolley may have been through a shared colorist, or the acquisition of studio furniture and equipment from Woolley's warehouse next to his studio, the possible source of Nevin's table with the griffin-shaped legs and wallhanging of a river scene which appear often in Nevin's studio portraits, and is also visible in this uncut photograph of Bishop Willson attributed to Woolley (TMAG Collection).

RELATED ARTICLES main weblog

• T. J. Nevin's Christmas cards 1874 
• Clifford and Nevin, Hobart Town: tinted cartes

Prisoner Thomas OWENS with headrest

HEADREST
SUPREME COURT CONVICTION

This carte-de-visite prisoner identification photograph of Thomas Owens is held at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. It was originally held at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, donated from government estrays in the 1930s as part of the Beattie collection of convictaria where it was archived on recto with the number "49". It was removed for exhibition at the Port Arthur Historic Site in 1983, and returned to the TMAG rather than to the QVMAG.  See the QVMAG list here.



Prisoner OWENS, Thomas
TMAG Ref: Q15575
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin



Verso:Prisoner OWENS, Thomas
TMAG Ref: Q15575
Photographer: Thomas J. Nevin

Thomas Owens was photographed by Thomas J. Nevin at the Hobart Gaol sometime between Owen's transfer from the Launceston Supreme Court in 1870 with a sentence of 4 yrs for housebreaking, and his discharge in the last week of September 1873. Several duplicates were printed from Nevin's original glass plate at the Hobart Gaol: the photocopy of another duplicate (below), printed from the same negative, is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania with a different set of recto inscriptions. The verso transcription "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" on the TMAG item (above) was written on the versos of hundreds more of these 1870s prisoner photographs in the early 1900s by Beattie's Studio for exhibition and sale in Hobart and Sydney.



Archives Office of Tasmania
Reference PH30/1/4113
Thomas Owens, convict per Gilmore. Photo taken by Thomas Nevin
Date: 1874 circa

This is another print of Nevin's glass negative of prisoner Thomas Owens which is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania.The headrest is clearly visible in this print as well. The details of the subject's pose, direction of gaze, and clothing, as well as the technical details of camera distance and vignette frame, are similar to the rest of the batch of prisoner identification photographs taken by government contractor T. J. Nevin. It was taken at the Hobart Gaol, most likely in the fortnight prior to Owen's discharge in 1873, and not at Port Arthur in 1874. The verso transcription "Taken at Port Arthur 1874" was written on the versos of hundreds of these 1870s prisoner photographs in the early 1900s by Beattie's Studio for exhibitions and sale in Hobart and Sydney.

Unlike the cdv held at the TMAG , this paper print held at the Archives Office does not carry a number written on the mount just below the photo, which is an indication that it was not reprinted in the 1900s by John Watt Beattie nor reprinted by the Archives Office of Tasmania or the QVMAG. It may have been the original pasted to the prisoner's record sheet held at the Hobart Gaol, and removed decades later by someone attempting to identify an ancestor. This print bears the name "Howard White" and "Trans (ported? illegible) 1832" which supposedly indicates the prisoner's name and the date he was transported to Van Diemen's Land. The handwritten inscriptions on recto could have been written any time from when the photograph was removed from the prisoner's criminal sheet up until the mid to late 20th century.

POLICE RECORDS
The AOT's record of the name of this prisoner for this image is "Thomas Owens" and not "Howard White". The police record for Owens on discharge indicates yet another alias, Michael Foxley. The man pictured here is likely to be the prisoner by the name of Thomas Owens per Gilmore 1who was discharged between 27th September and October 1st, 1873, aged 62 years. As was standard judicial practice, Nevin registered his photo of Owens for the Hobart Supreme Court and included a further duplicate in the Town Hall Municipal Police Photo Books on the prisoner's discharge from the Hobart Gaol. When he was discharged, Owens returned to Launceston where he died a few months later of heart disease, on 21 February 1874.



But by the 21st February, 1874, Owens was dead; he had died of heart disease, aged 64 years.



Inquest on the death of Thomas Owens at Launceston, 21 Feb 1874.

Source: Tasmania Reports of Crime Information for Police 1871-1875. J. Barnard Gov't Printer.