“Queen Mary, Ballarat”.

[Caption from inscription on verso of mount]. Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 102 x 62 mm (mount); verso inscribed in ink (probably in the hand of the photographer) ‘Queen Mary / Ballarat’; a beautiful print with excellent clarity; the mount is clean and stable.

This full-length portrait of Mary Phillips, who was commonly known by the title “Queen Mary of the Ballarat tribe”, was taken at Coranderrk Station by Fred Kruger around 1876-77. She is wearing a traditional skin cloak, and poses with boomerangs, two woven baskets (very possibly her own work), a digging stick, and another stick which likely denoted her status.

In 1879, at Coranderrk, Mary would marry Kaawirn Kuunawarn (“hissing swan”, aka King David, c.1820-1889), chief of the Gunaward gundidj clan of the Girai Wurrung of Lake Connewarren, west of Mortlake in southwest Victoria, who had previously been living at the Framingham Aboriginal reserve near Warrnambool.