Commonplace album of Emma Juana Balcombe (Reid), of “The Briars”, Mornington, Victoria. 1860s-80s.

Quarto (290 x 240 mm), lacking the upper board, but retaining the original elaborately tooled leather lower board and backstrip; approximately [70] leaves of paper in a variety of colours, containing more than 30 original pencil sketches and watercolour drawings by amateur artist Emma Juana Balcombe (Mrs Alexander Beatson Balcombe), including studies of native flowers, butterflies, bush scenes and small portraits, plus a mounted albumen print portrait photograph (150 x 120 mm) of Emma Juana, probably taken in the early 1870s; there are also several poems by Dryden, Byron, Wordsworth, Longfellow and Robert Lynd (the ballad Leichhardt’s Grave), written out from memory by Emma Juana and her family and friends, the earliest dated 1861; loosely inserted are a small number of pressed gum leaves and ferns, and a few engravings; although the binding is defective, the album’s contents are overall very well preserved and free from foxing.

This charming colonial commonplace album provides a unique insight into the private intellectual and artistic world of an educated woman who was a member of Melbourne’s social elite.

Emma Juana, daughter of  Dr. David Reid, RN, arrived in New South Wales as an infant in 1823. Her father first settled with his family at Inverary, near Goulburn, and later moved to the Monaro district. In 1841 Emma married wealthy St. Helena-born pastoralist Alexander Beatson Balcombe, of “The Briars” homestead, Mornington, Victoria. In later life she resided at Eastcourt, George Street, East Melbourne.

Provenance: Emma Juana Balcombe (Reid) (1823-1907), of “The Briars”, Mornington, Victoria; her daughter, Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1854-1924); thence by descent through the à Beckett family, Melbourne.