photographic print(black and white)
- Museum number
- Oc,B68.18
- Description
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Photograph (black and white); of an illustration depicting a cliff, overlooking a large expanse of water, with a burial pile of human skulls, rocks and other (dugong?) bones on top of the cliff; Cape York, Queensland, Australia.
Gelatin silver print
- Production date
- 20thC(early)
- Dimensions
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Height: 7.30 centimetres
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Width: 9.90 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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A print of this image appears on p. 161 of H. Allen (ed), 'Australia. William Blandowski's Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia', Aboriginal Studies Press, 2010, with the following:
'142. Also at Cape York, Jukes mentions a curious form of burial. The skulls of the deceased are laid on ledges under over-hanging rocks above the sea coast, like a mausoleum, and surrounded by the skulls of dugongs, bones and turtles arranged in interesting designs. Drawing by G. Mutzel.
Plate 218, Aborigines of Australia. Grave on Cape York. William v Blandowski in Australia in lower left corner, GM 61 in left corner. After Jukes (1847, illustration, pp.137-8).'
See: J B Jukes 1847, Narrative of a Surveying Voyage of H.M.S.Fly, T W Boone, London.
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Producer/Context:
William Blandowski, with his assistant Gerard Krefft, conducted several expeditions in Southern Australia during the late 1850s. After returning to Silesia (Gleiwitz), he attempted to pursue his idea of producing an encyclopaedia of Australian natural history and aboriginal anthropology. He could not, however, get the required funding - so he approached the graphic artist Gustav Mützel to produce composite art works from his (Blandowski's ) art and photographs, and Krefft's field illustrations and notebooks. Blandowski couldn’t afford colour printing so he photographed these prepared plates and tipped (pasted) them into the Australian volume. Some drawings are from his own Australia terra Cognita series.*
(per email from Professor Harry Allen, University of Auckland. 10/09/08; see Picdoc 218)
*Most of the 'Australia Terra Cognita' (1855) series of engravings are gathered in an unpublished book by Blandowski, held by the National Library of Australia, which were made into engravings by J Redaway and Sons (1855-60).
Related images: Some of Mützel’s plates and Krefft's originals are in the historical collections of the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- The image has a slight cut across the centre.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc,B68.18