drawing
- Museum number
- Oc2006,Drg.59
- Description
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Drawing; graphite and watercolour, from a collection of nineteen Thomas Bock portraits of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, held by the British Museum. It depicts Tanaminawayt (aka Tunnaminnerwate, Jack), a Tasmanian Aboriginal man from Cape Grim, wearing a skin cloak. He has dressed hair and scarification on his upper right arm.
- Production date
- 1831-1835
- Dimensions
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Height: 28.80 centimetres
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Width: 22.30 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Plomley (1965:4) wrote of this man: ''3. Jack/Tunnerminnerwate (Plate 3). The Oxford portrait is inscribed in type B - "Jack Native of Cape Grim"; and the portrait in the Royal Anthropological Institute - "Tunnaminerwate/Native of Cape Grim/Van Diemen's Land" in type A. The notes on the Oxford portrait are - "about 24 'rather risible' md. to Fanny - no family - very good disposition".'
The title inscribed on the drawing of the later image by Bock of this woman at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart is 'Jack, Native of Cape Grim, VDL'. See Plomley (1991:32).
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"9. Fine coloured drawing of “Tunnaminnawate” [male symbol]. By Bock. Native of Cape Grim. Kangaroo dress on. Ochred. Wheals on arm." From MS145 'Catalogue of Drawings, Paintings & other objects of an Ethnological Nature', Royal Anthropological Institute Archive.
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Oc2006, Drg.79 is a copy of this drawing done by G. Gray for J. Barnard Davis.
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In 1965 NJB Plomley published a paper which attempted to untangle the complex provenance of the different collections of Thomas Bock’s (1790-1855) portraits of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, including those held by the British Museum. The British Museum’s seventeen Bock portraits were acquired from Dr J Barnard Davis’ collection in 1883. Plomley (1965:15) argued that Davis acquired this set of portraits before 1867 from Thomas Bock’s son, Alfred Bock (1835-1920), and that they are copies of Thomas Bock’s work, executed by Alfred. However, based on a close study of the surviving documentation and its relationship to the inscriptions on many of the British Museum’s Bock portraits, it is clear that the British Museum’s collection of Bock portraits derive from a larger assemblage of prints, paintings and ethnographic objects collected by Robinson before his return to England in 1852, and which Barnard Davis purchased from GA Robinson’s widow in 1867. Davis’ descriptions of this material clearly identify the works as having been executed by Thomas Bock.
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The production date is based on Plomley (1991:35).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2017-2018 06 Dec– 11 Mar, Birmingham, Ikon Gallery, Thomas Bock
2018 17 Aug -09 Nov, Hobart, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Thomas Bock
- Condition
- Window mounted, in good condition.
- Acquisition notes
- This was probably part of the collection of artworks and ethnographic objects which Joseph Barnard Davis (q.v.) acquired from Robinson's widow in the 1860s, and which AW Franks (q.v.) later purchased for the British Museum at the auction sale of Davis's estate in 1883.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc2006,Drg.59
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: 9 (Davis Catalogue MS 145 RAI 1867)
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Miscellaneous number: Oc2006-Drg59-Boc
