An important group of photographs of scenes in the Victorian Alps, circa 1900.

Group of 11 (eleven) sepia-tone gelatin silver print photographs, in uniform 140 x 200 mm format, laid down on the photographer’s pale green card mounts, 160 x 235 mm; eight are captioned (see below) and signed by the photographer in the negative ‘F. Foxcroft Photo. Bright’; one is signed, but without caption (scene of an alpine hut with two men on primitive skis); the remaining two (waterfall; river gorge) are not signed or captioned, but are clearly by the same photographer and from the same series; the versos are blank; the majority of the prints are in excellent condition: one has small loss at one corner, another has a short closed tear, and two prints are slightly paler than the others, one of these also having a couple of light marks; the mounts are all very clean and stable, but two have some minor damage at one corner.

Frank Foxcroft was the resident photographer in the picturesque Victorian alpine township of Bright from 1892 until 1926. With his camera he documented not only the majestic landscape of the region but also the recreational activities of early tourists such as skiing and bushwalking and hiking along the various alpine trails.

This important and substantial archive of Foxcroft photographs – all Victorian Alps scenes – was taken around the time of Federation. We have not been able to trace other examples of any of these images in Australian institutional collections.

The eight captions read as follows: ‘Eurobin Falls’; ‘Peep at Bright (Winter)’; ‘Peep at Bright (Summer)’; ‘Sunset on the Aust. Alps’; ‘Feathertop’; ‘Ovens River’; ‘Lookout Rock, Buffalo Mt.’; ‘100 Fathoms Deep. Buffalo Mt.’.