Photographic portraits of Gellibrand and Jammawing, both Gulidjan speakers, Western District, Victoria, circa 1877.

Two albumen print photographs, carte de visite format, 106 x 63 mm (mounts), versos of mounts with contemporary inscriptions in ink ‘Gellebrand [sic] / Colac’ and ‘Jammawing / Colac’, respectively; the albumen prints are in good condition (the horizontal scratch on the Gellibrand print is in the original glass negative; the Jammawing print has some mottling, but also in the negative); the mounts are clean, though little unevenly trimmed.

The portrait of Gellibrand is the second image in German-born photographer Fred Kruger’s Souvenir Album of Victorian Aboriginals, Kings, Queens, &c, which comprised twelve carte de visite format albumen prints mounted on individual leaves with printed captions on the mounts. Examples of this album, which dates to around 1877, are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, and South Australian Museum. Kruger’s album was published slightly later in its considerably more famous format, the leporello album with the almost identical title Album of the Kings &​ Queens of Victoria (c.1880).

The portrait of Jammawing did not appear in Kruger’s album, and we can locate no other copy of the image in Australian collections. It is of particular interest as it shows a section of the decorated inside of her possum skin cloak.

The traditional lands of the Gulidjan (or Kolakngat) people are centred around the Lake Colac area.