drawing

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Object Type
Museum number: Oc2006,Drg.12
Title: Object: Sarah from Cape Portland V.D.L.
Description: Drawing depicting a side view of 'Sarah' (Tanganutara), a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman, wearing a dress and a red cap; graphite and watercolour. 1845
Producer name
Production date: 1845
Production place: Painted in: Wybalenna
Materials: paper; graphite
Technique: drawn; painted
Dimensions: Height: 21.50 centimetres; Width: 15 centimetres
$Inscriptions
Curator's comments: According to Robert Clark, the catechist at Flinders Island, Sarah's Aboriginal name was 'Jakanoothara', meaning weeping very much. See BM Pic Doc 171.; It is one of a series of twenty one portraits of Tasmanian Aboriginal people completed by Prout during a visit to the Wybalenna Aboriginal Station on Flinders Island in February and March 1845. "Sarah born at Cape Portland - a sealing man of the name James Barret took her from her Father and brought her to [blank] Island - Barret left her and she cohabited with a man of the name of [blank] - had another child by a white man on Flinders - is now married to Eugene, and has a son by him. When she was taken away by the sealing men - she ran away from them some time after - Mr Robinson found her and brought her back to Hobart Town.' - From notes given to Prout in 1845 by Robert Clark, Catechist at Wybalenna, Flinders Island (contained in Eth Doc 915). Notes from Gaye Sculthorpe in November 2012: This woman is in fact my grandmother’s grandmother’s mother. Her Aboriginal name is Tanganutara. She is the mother of the famous Tasmanian Aboriginal woman, Fanny Smith, who recorded Aboriginal songs c.1899 and 1903.
Bibliographic references: Brown et al 1986 / Skinner Prout in Australia 1840-48; Kolenberg 1988 / Tasmanian Vision: The art of nineteenth century Tasmania: paintings, drawings and sculpture from European exploration and settlement to 1900; Sculthorpe et al. 2015 / Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (p.146, fig.25); National Museum of Australia 2015 / Encounters. Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum (p.151)
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
Condition: Window mounted, in good condition.
Associated names
Associated places: Associated with: Wybalenna; Associated with: Cape Portland
Associated ethnic name
Acquisition name
Previous owner
Acquisition notes: In 1856 the artist John Skinner Prout sold Joseph Barnard Davis a collection of 36 of his portraits of Australian Aborigines and Maori people. After Davis's death in 1881, these portraits, along with other pictorial and ethnographic material, were acquired by the British Museum.
Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Registration number: Oc2006,Drg.12
Additional IDs: Miscellaneous number: Oc2006-Drg12-Pro

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