Portrait of Cyrus William Doyle, son of pioneer Hunter Valley pastoralist Edmund Doyle. West Maitland, New South Wales, late 1860s.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 101 x 62 mm (mount); verso with imprint of ‘Elijah Hart, Photographic Artist, High Street, West Maitland, N.S.W.’, and a full contemporary inscription in ink: ‘Cyrus’; the vignetted portrait has some light marks that are mostly confined to the edges of the print.

We believe the sitter to be Cyrus William Doyle (1837-1922), a pastoralist who owned the property Goorangoola, near Singleton. He was the son of Edmund Doyle (1799-1871), a notable early free settler in the Hunter. Cyrus married Harriett Alice Parker in Sydney in 1865. His oldest sister, Mary Ann, married the poet Charles Harpur.

Note: The sitter appears too young to be Cyrus’ cousin and namesake, Cyrus Edward Doyle (1821-1877), son of Edmund’s brother Cyrus Matthew Doyle (1793-1855).