Farewell of Le Chevalier Blondin.

[Title from caption in the image]. [Melbourne : Timothy Noble, 1874]. Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm; verso without studio imprint, but in pencil are the original owner’s name ‘J. S. Wright’ and his gift inscription ‘For Cousin Jessie’; the print has some foxing at top edge and the front of the mount has ink marks to the upper borders.

The celebrated French aerialist Charles Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet, 1824-1897) visited Australia in 1874, where he performed in Sydney and Melbourne. Even at the age of 50, he was still agile enough to thrill spectators with one of his most famous stunts: cooking and eating an omelette on a tightrope high above the ground.

Although without a studio imprint, this carte de visite clearly relates to another by Melbourne photographer Timothy Noble held in the National Portrait Gallery of Australia (2018.83), and was probably taken at the same time. The Age reported in November 1874: ‘We have received from Mr. Noble, photographer, of Bourke-street, a very good likeness of M. Blondin, with all his honors. The medals shown in the photograph have quite a history attached to them. Among them is the order of her Catholic Majesty the Queen of Spain.’

Blondin’s final performances in Australia were in Melbourne during Christmas week 1874, meaning that the carte de visite offered here, which incorporates the publisher’s caption commemorating his farewell, is likely to have been sold as a souvenir at one of these spectacular events.