Tommy McRae, circa 1820-1901, UNTITLED (FIGHTING FIGURES)

• Lot Sold $12,000 (Hammer Price)
• $14,400 (Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium)

pen and ink on paper laid down on card  
17 BY 29.5CM  

Provenance: 
Acquired by Alan Knox Buckley, Headmaster of Rutherglen School, in the last quarter of the 19th century; thence by descent

Cf. For related works of similar subject matter see Fight Between Two Tribes in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, illustrated in A. Sayers, Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1994, p.34, pl.M4 (illus.), and Lachlan War Dance in the collection of the La Trobe Library, State Library of Victoria (ibid.), p.32, pl.M14 (illus.).
 
This is an animated drawing of pairs of men in hand-to-hand combat. McRae has depicted the detail of the body painting worn by the men on their torsos, legs and arms, and even hinted at the decoration engraved onto some of the parrying shields.