painting
- Museum number
- Oc1955,08.1
- Description
-
Painting, on oblong piece of bark, in red, yellow, white and black. The pattern is divided into vertical sections, filled with diagonal, dotted lines. Central rectangle, with a single line extending from above and below to either end, decorated with arrow pattern on background of red. Horizontal section at either end of bark with diagonal, dotted lines. Undecorated section at one end.
- Production date
- 1935-1955 (?)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 72 centimetres
-
Width: 31 centimetres
-
Depth: 5 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
-
Register 1955
Bark sheet with painted decoration on one side carried out in cross-hatched lines of white, red and yellow, with black dots and small black areas.
Meaning: "Lily leaf - eaten for vegetable matter and collected by women; stylized breasts of woman; track of the early birds; two wells."
Made by Marawilli, aged about 25.
N.E.Arnhem Land, Australia
Collected by the Rev. E.A.Wells, Methodist overseas missions, North Australia District, Milingimbi Mission, Box 236, Darwin.
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Text on paper pasted on reverse: 'Marawilli. Lily leaf. Eaten for vegetable matter. Collected by women. Stylized breast[s] of women. Trackof the early birds. Two wells also in the scene.'
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1972-1982 23 Jun-28 Feb, London, BM, Museum of Mankind, The Aborigines of Australia
- Acquisition date
- 1955
- Acquisition notes
- Collected by the Rev. E.A. Wells, Methodist Overseas Missions and left in London. Letter from Berkeley Galleries, London, to B.A.L. Cranstone of the Museum 21 April 1955: 'We have a number of Bark paintings from North East Arnhem Land, which we acquired some time ago together with some totems and would like to show these to you if you could come to our Galleries some time. They are fairly unique, as far as we know there are no others of this type in tihis country...'. A letter of 5 September 1955 from Wells at Milingimbi in Arnhem Land to Cranstone offered to help make a collection, saying 'I shall be very honoured to help in putting our native art and cultural heritage where it will be treasured and secured in perpetuity'.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1955,08.1
