painting

Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

Object Type
Museum number: Oc1973,Q.17
Description: Painting on bark showing two anthropomorphic figures in white pigment.The figure on the left appears to be female with breasts depicted; the right hand figure is male showing male genitalia. Both figures have tongues sticking out.
Production ethnic group
Production date: 19thC (likely before 1849)
Production place: Made in: Port Essington (Attributed to Port Essington); Made in: Arnhem Land (?)
Excavator/field collector
Findspot: Found/Acquired: Port Essington; Found/Acquired: Arnhem Land
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Length: 93.50 centimetres; Width: 31 centimetres
Curator's comments: As outlined by Simpson (2021:244-245), when Tilston died at Port Essington in 1849, he left his collection in his will to Haslar Hospital Museum. Weighing 'a ton', the collection was taken from Port Essington to Sydney in HMS Meander; it stayed in the commissariat stores for almost a year until it was arranged by another naval surgeon WHB Jones for it to be sent to Haslar, where it arrived in 1851.; For a discussion of this and other early paintings on bark from this region see Paul S C Tacon and Susan M Davies 'Transitional traditions: "Port Essington" bark-paintings and the European discovery of Aboriginal aesthetics'. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2004 (2):72-86. Luke Taylor (email 24/10/2014) notes that paired male/female figures can relate to Kunabibi and Wubar stories; see also 'love magic' paintings collected by R. & C. Berndt 'Sexual Behaviour in Western Arnhem Land', 1951.; For a detailed analysis of bark painting from this region, see L. Taylor, 'Seeing the Inside. Bark Painting in Western Arnhem Land.' Oxford. 1996.
Bibliographic references: Tacon et al 2004 / Transitional traditions: 'Port Essington' bark-paintings and the European discovery of Aboriginal aesthetics; Sculthorpe et al. 2015 / Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (p.135, fig.16); National Museum of Australia 2015 / Encounters. Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum (p.77); Simpson 2021 / The Royal Navy in Indigenous Australia, 1795-1855. Maritime Encounters and British Museum Collections. (pp.245-247)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: Exhibited: 2015 23 Apr-2 Aug, London, BM, G35, Indigenous Australia: enduring civilisation 2015-2016 27 Nov-28 Mar, Canberra, National Museum of Australia, Encounters
Subjects: mythical figure/creature (?); ancestral being (Oceania)
Associated places: Associated with: Northern Territory (Australia)
Previous owner
Acquisition notes: Acquisition details not recorded. Handwritten tied-on label: 'M.704 from the Haslar Museum' 'N/N 2' added in pencil. Most of the material in the British Museum from Haslar Hospital Museum was acquired in 1855, though there is also some in the Christy four figure numbers.
Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Registration number: Oc1973,Q.17
Conservation

Free entry

Opening hours