Premises of F. Fox, Butcher. South Australia, early 1860s.

Stereoscopic albumen print photograph, each image 63 x 65 mm (rounded corners), on original flat mount of white card, 80 x 175 mm; the albumen prints are somewhat faded and lightly marked, as is the mount.

This early Australian stereoscopic photograph shows a two-storey colonial brick building with a shop sign that reads ‘F. Fox, Butcher’. The proprietor (Mr. Fox) and his family pose in front of the store beneath the wide iron-roofed verandah, from which a number of carcasses are suspended; a horse is tethered to one of the verandah supports. The precise location is unknown, and the photographer is unidentified. The photograph was sourced in Somerset, U.K., along with an early 1860s South Australian stereoview (a studio portrait of an Aboriginal group) which was inscribed for a ‘Mrs Fox, Taunton’. The surname of Fox connects the two stereoviews, so it is plausible that they were sent home to Taunton in Somerset in the 1860s by a member of the Fox family who had settled in South Australia.