Studio portrait of a woman with her small dog. Melbourne, late 1880s.

Albumen print photograph, cabinet card format, 165 x 108 mm (mount); recto imprinted ‘Yeoman & Co., 107 Swan Street, Richmond’; verso blank; both the print and mount are in fine condition.

A lovely portrait of an eccentrically-dressed Melbourne woman posing with her adorable pet dog – a Brittany spaniel?

Yeoman & Co. operated their Swan Street, Richmond studio in the years 1886-88 (Davies & Stanbury, The Mechanical Eye in Australia).

This cabinet card came from an album compiled by a member of one of the branches of the Handfield family of Melbourne in the second half of the nineteenth century. Three Handfield brothers arrived in Melbourne from Ireland in the 1850s: William Hopton Handfield (m. Isabelle Tatham; the couple had 4 children); Lieutenant Frederick Oliver Handfield (m. Mary Ellen Tatham; the couple had 7 children); Rev. Henry Hewett Paulet Handfield (m. Mary Leigh Tripp; no issue). We believe the woman in this portrait is one of the daughters of William Hopton Handfield, secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club.