A large four-panel photographic panorama of Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
[Dunedin, Joseph Weaver Allen, 1874].
Four large vintage albumen silver prints (each approximately 173 × 280 mm), mounted on the two inner openings of three large album leaves (360 × 277 mm).
Mounts somewhat cockled; prints a little discoloured at the edges and spotted; tiny chip to the corner of one; in very good condition overall, now housed in a custom-made cloth portfolio, lettered in gilt on the front cover.
The panorama (approximately 173 × 1120 mm in total) shows Dunedin and Otago Harbour from a vantage point in the Town Belt above Arthur Street. From the old lunatic asylum in the north west (now the site of Otago Boys' High School) it sweeps approximately 180° to take in the Dunedin Exhibition Building, Old St Paul's Church, First Church of Otago (opened in 1873), the town's wharves, and commercial and residential buildings. Two of these impressive whole-plate views are signed in the negative 'J.W. Allen'; all are captioned in pencil on the mount beneath the image. We have not traced examples of these images in any institutional collections. However, Allen took another panorama, in the much smaller carte-de-visite format, from the same location and on the same day. In that view the figures in the right-hand panel (a group of boys on a hillside) have moved. The National Library of New Zealand holds an example of this smaller version (PA2-0004 to PA2-0010), and the University of Otago Library's Hocken Collections hold another panorama of five cartes-de-visite taken from a little further to the south west (P2007-019-003). A further seven albumen silver photographs, of the same vintage and all of New Zealand subjects, are mounted on the external surfaces of the leaves. They are: A view of Lyttelton (100 × 174 mm), showing the town and harbour; Two carte-de-visite views of Christchurch (showing the Victoria bridge and the Canterbury Provincial Buildings); A view of a family in front of a small weatherboard house (88 × 125 mm), captioned 'Private residence (Mr Jno. Hobden) | Addington'; A photocollage advertising 'Photography | Burton Bros. | Dunedin' (123 × 84 mm); A view of two individuals in traditional dress in front of a Maori house (93 × 88 mm); and A carte-de-visite of a museum display of a moa skeleton (labelled 'Palapteryx Elephantopus | Glenmark'), most likely in the Canterbury Museum.
Item #146932
Price (AUD):
$2,500.00