Studio portrait of a young woman holding a letter. Western District, Victoria, early 1860s.

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 103 x 63 mm (mount); verso imprinted ‘Photographed by Thos. J. J. Wyatt, Warrnambool, Portland and Belfast’; a superb, crisp print; in fine condition, as is the mount.

A beautiful studio portrait of a woman seated beside a table, holding a letter. There can be little doubt she is from one of the families of the Western District’s squattocracy.

This carte has the earlier and much scarcer back mark of the itinerant Western District photographer Thomas Wyatt, which mentions Belfast (Port Fairy), but not Mount Gambier, as on the later version.