Studio portrait of a woman with her dogs. Melbourne, mid 1880s.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 104 x 63 mm (mount); verso imprinted ‘”Imperial”, 109 Elizabeth Street,  Melbourne’ (this studio was later operated by E. C. Waddington), and with fully contemporary pencilled initials ‘E. H.’; both the print and mount are in very good condition.

A lovely studio portrait of a Melbourne woman with her arm around her fairly large dog – a Gordon setter? – while she holds a smaller dog (a pit bull terrier?) by its collar.

This carte came from an album compiled by a member of one of the branches of the Handfield family of Melbourne in the second half of the nineteenth century. Three Handfield brothers arrived in Melbourne from Ireland in the 1850s: William Hopton Handfield (m. Isabelle Tatham; the couple had 4 children); Lieutenant Frederick Oliver Handfield (m. Mary Ellen Tatham; the couple had 7 children); Rev. Henry Hewett Paulet Handfield (m. Mary Leigh Tripp; no issue). We believe the woman in this portrait is one of the daughters of William Hopton Handfield, secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club.