ARTIST UNKNOWN (Australian, 19th century) ABORIGINES AND EXPLORERS ON THE BANKS OF A RIVER wax relief on glass

wax relief on glass

14.7 X 21.2CM

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Adelaide

EXHIBITED
(possibly) Relics exhibition, Old Colonists' Association, Banqueting Hall, Town Hall, Adelaide, December 1886

LITERATURE
(possibly) 'Old Colonist Relics', The South Australian Register, Adelaide, 28 December 1886, p. 6

This remarkable artifact is something of a puzzle. Modelled in red wax on a glass support, it depicts a scene of Indigenous-settler encounter on the Australian colonial frontier. In the foreground is a frieze five bearded Aborigines and a European, the figures arrayed across the near bank of a river; behind them, on the far side of the stream, we see a man on horseback wearing a pith helmet, with two other horses grazing nearby; a wagon with camping and cooking utensils beside it; and two Aborigines at a smoking fire.

The work’s authorship is difficult to determine. While in the 1840s Theresa Walker (1807-1876) made numerous wax portrait medallions, the present work is possibly somewhat later, and certainly somewhat more sophisticated. An academic artistic education can be inferred not only by the quality of the modelling, but also by the standing figure on the left, which is oddly reminiscent of classical and Hellenistic sculpture – of the Apollo Belvedere, and of the Laocöon; while the two reclining figures in the centre summon up various images of Graeco- Roman river gods.

It is quite possibly the work of a German immigrant; the figure of the European at bottom right has something of the character of northern or eastern European woodcarving. The well-known painter of Aboriginal subjects, Alexander Schramm (1813-1864) was also regarded as ‘a clever portrait modeller in clay’ (1), and exhibited a bust of Sir James Hurtle Fisher with the South Australian Society of Arts; he may be one candidate for attribution. The sculptor August Saupé (?-1913), one of the two artists of the Exhibition Fountain in the Carlton Gardens, Melbourne, is another; he is known to have made a couple of life-sized wax figures of Aborigines for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. Alternatively, it could conceivably be the work of one of Adelaide’s several figurative silversmiths – Julius Schomburgk, Henry Steiner, J.M. Wendt et al – possibly the model for a commemorative/presentation plaque.

Of South Australian provenance, the present work may be the ‘scene in relief representing a group of aboriginals [which] was shown by Mr H. Chambers’ at the Old Colonists’ Association exhibition in Adelaide in 1886. Interestingly, Hugh Chambers was the son of the prominent South Australian pastoralist James Chambers, who, with his brother John, sponsored several of John McDouall Stuart’s journeys of exploration in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and his contribution to the Old Colonists’ ‘relics’ show also included ‘Stuart’s original diary [and] the programmes of the Stuart demonstration printed on satin.’(2) If the present work is indeed the Chambers relief, it could be that it depicts a scene from one of Stuart’s expeditions.

Dr David Hansen

(1) Mary Overbury, cited in Joan Kerr, the Dictionary of Australian Artists: Painters, Sketchers, Photographers and Engravers to 1870, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 702

(2) ‘Old Colonist Relics’, The South Australian Register, Adelaide, 28 December 1886, p. 6. It is interesting that lot 12, which shares the same provenance, is also recorded as having been shown in the Old Colonists’ exhibition.