Three large albumen paper photographs, captioned in ink on the verso of each mount 'Palmerston, Port Darwin, NT, destroyed by Tornado, December, 1896'
Each approximately 150 × 200 mm, on the original cardboard mounts (240 × 300 mm).
The mounts are a little marked and chipped, one print is a little weak on contrast, but overall the condition is very good.
Further specific details are pencilled onto the verso of each mount, namely 'P.R. Allen's Store', 'Rundle's Store', and 'Bennett Street'. Interestingly, the well-exposed interior of Allen's store shows another photographer at work. The initials 'FEB' are on the verso of each mount; not unnaturally, we thought this was the photographer, until we discovered his initials are FAKB. Florenz August Karl Bleeser (1871-1942) was born in Woodside, South Australia. He became an assistant postmaster in Darwin, where he lived from 1889 until his death. A large collection of his glass negatives in the National Library of Australia includes variant examples of two of these prints (NLA PIC/9981/63 and 65).
Item #102740
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